"Jim Webb; Jim Webb."

Something recently reminded me of when I used to accompany my mom into Salt Lake City on Saturday while she made the rounds between stores shopping for clothes, furniture or whatever happened to be on the list.

There was a department store, Auerbach's, that was along the lines of the fancy New York stores with an elaborate cosmetics department complete with the overdressed, hauty department head who always stood out because of her striking appearance. The place was nice and it was where I made my first announcement about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wanted to be an elevator operator.

Now I was only three or four at the time, I think, (maybe eight or nine; always the under-achiever) and I don't know if it was the actual operation of the elevator, the personality of the guy who did the job or the cool uniform. But it was endlessly fascinating to me that the door would open, we'd get on and the fellow operating the elevator would perform some mechanical manipulations and the door would open onto another floor.

But the best part about going to Auerbach's was that a very elegant and soft-spoken voice would come over the loudspeaker, after the sound of a polite chime, and repeat my name twice.

"Jim Webb," the voice would say as if it were an inquiry. And then again; "Jim Webb," as if it were the answer to a question.

That happened for years. It started when I was too young to know what was going on and my mom probably told me it meant that they were watching me. And it continued until I was in high school. I was sad when I realized that I didn't hear them paging him any more. Whoever the guy was, he worked there for a long time but we never met.

Maybe that's when I first started feeling special. I mean to have my name broadcast throughout the entire store every time I went there and usually several times was sure to make some kind of impression. Gee I may have just discovered the root of my paranoia!

It Feels a Little Funny Being Jim Webb

When I was a kid, I imagined being so famous that I would be on all the talk shows. I couldn't ever come up with a fantasy reason for being famous but that didn't stop me.

I don't want to say that I've given up on that because I really, truly still want to do something in life to make a big difference. I want to be a household name. But I want to be respected, of course. I don't want to be infamous, just famous.

So I'm a little miffed that James Webb has taken my name and made history with it. Don't get me wrong. I'm really, really proud of him. He is a well-respected man and I thrilled with his win in Virginia. But he just made it a little harder for me to achieve my goal!

I will always be known as the other, other, Jim Webb since there was already a famous songwriter named Jimmy Webb. There is only one defining difference, something my dad thought of when I was named. I am really Jim. I'm not James or Jimmy or anything else. My legal first name is Jim.

Lately I've been thinking about all the people I've ever known. Well, not literally. What I mean is that if even for just a second, it's kind of nice that there's a good chance that when they've heard about Jim Webb of Virginia, they've given a thought to me.

A Refreshing Change

Now if we could only go two more years without having to see or hear George Bush (either of them) speak. (Add Barbara to the list too.)

Waking up to today's political news was like having an extra birthday or Christmas coming early. All I hoped for was a proper balance of power in Washington but what we got was a tsunami of change that swept across the whole country. It's a good sign.

Growing up, I heard a lot about "blind faith" in church and was taught that it's each person's responsibility to study the scriptures, pray and develop their own personal relationship with the Lord. And doesn't this also apply to our government and society as well? I feel sorry for all the people who believe everything they've been told. They are ignorant.

I heard a little 12 year-old girl from Idaho on the radio the other day claim that Democrats are immoral and Republicans are blessed by God. Gee. I wonder where she heard that. Her mom got on the phone and said she came to that conclusion all by herself. Right. The poor girl will have some adjusting to do if she ever plans on leaving home or having friends from other countries, religions or backgrounds.

When I left utah in 1986, I was full of ambition and looking forward to a new life in California without dealing with snow and ice in winter and naturalizing myself among the people I'd found so interesting and stimulating in previous visits. An opportunity came and I took it.

Even though life took some very unexpected turns, I don't regret making the move.

What my friends, neighbors and associates don't understand, lately, is how people across this country can be so blind to what's really going on in America. I think parts of this year's campaign made it abundantly clear that entire groups of people have been blinded by their faith in leaders that only wanted the power of their numbers. I feel bad for those people. They were used.

Personally, I think that hearings on impeachment should begin on Monday. Crimes have been committed against this country. We are still dangerous close to a fascist regime, fueled by the passionate throngs of the blind faithful who eat what they're fed and believe what they're told.

The priority must be to take over leadership of the country, though, and try to get things under control. I can understand not wanting to cause more problems by "getting even," as I heard impeachment referred to today. The rest of the world already seems to know what's been happening here. It's vital all Americans know too.

I'm still very worried about the future of this country but yesterday was a refreshing change.

Night Photography

Some of my Flickr friends are expert night photographers. I've been looking at their stuff for a long time now trying to learn from what they do. Most of the time you can click on someone's photo and find an incredible amount of detail about their camera, what their settings were, what time the photo was taken and other details.

The other night our power went out just as Saturday Night Live was about to start. After we got some candles lit and Brad went back to work putting together some savory pastries for next Saturday's party, I went outside to see if I could see how extensive the outage was.

It was nice, for a change, not having so many street lights on. The moon was full, though, so there was plenty of light. I'd like to have the power go out on a night where there is no moon so I can shoot photos of the stars.

But there was a beautiful big ring around the moon so I was excited about capturing it.

Tonight I walked down to Marina Park thinking I could get some nice shots across the bay. But I went to the wrong place. I took a few shots but just came back after seeing a skunk run across my path. There isn't much to see around here although window-peeping came to mind. The driving range is mildly interesting, I suppose, since it's a double-decker. I like seeing the golf balls stuck in random places in the big nets.

I tried to capture a moth in a very intense light but gave up and left a little short of what I hoped for. Still, I think this is an interesting shot. Click on it for a larger size. It's less headachy when it's larger.

Tomorrow is a big day. After voting, I'm going to San Francisco to see a quilt show at the new deYoung Museum. I won't be able to take photos, though, according to what I read because it's a special exhibition. Here's the link: http://www.thinker.org/deyoung/exhibitions/exhibition.asp?exhibitionkey=549 I saw something on PBS about these quilts so I'm excited about seeing them in person.

Enough is enough!

Time doesn't fly when you have "I haven't written anything lately" in the back of your mind every single day.

Whenever I fall silent, and that usually means letter-writing, it seems to indicate some degree of trouble coping or some kind of ailment. It takes me a while to recognize it but then I seem to wake up and realize I'm not well. I don't know why I go through weeks of torture, though. That doesn't make sense. But it has something to do with grinning and bearing it only for me it's more like grimacing and enduring it.

My psychological care at Kaiser Permanente leaves quite a lot to be desired. My personal physician has taken over the prescription of medicines because I've been relatively stable for a long time. Visits to my psychiatrist always make me angry because it's blatantly obviously that I am unimportant compared to the stacks and stacks of folders of real psych cases piled all around the office. There's little interaction. Ah, I don't want to discuss this because it's a real sore subject. Everyone I've seen has either moved to a different facility or retired. The one time I tried to find someone new ended in a big fiasco.

It feels like I'm falling over a cliff, about to devulge lots of personal information. So I have to watch myself because I never save drafts of these entries to be published later. I just blurt it out and I'm done. I've never done more than fix a typo.

But lately my headaches and TMJ issues have gotten so much worse again that I'm beginning to think I may go nuts. I don't know what the cause is. I see my doctor regularly and, in fact, just saw him a couple of weeks ago. I had a headache then too. And I told him. I guess I expect by now that if I say I have a headache he should realize that I have a massive headache. Just like when I say I have trouble sleeping and my dreams are disturbing. That means I am tormented by nightmares and never, ever feel rested.

A few months ago I switched one of the ingredients of my psychological cocktail from Prozac to Celexa. It was supposed to have a positive effect on my libido but I think that boat sailed and sunk a long time ago. Anyhow, since then things have gone downhill. I think I just realized that even though my doctor has encouraged me to stick with it a while longer because "it takes a long time for the medication to re-wire your brain," I think I'm done with it. The OCD symptoms have started again. I hear a constant buzzing in my head. Phrases, tunes and words repeat in my mind until I want to scream. Maybe I should scream. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a BAD TRIP.

The headaches could be caused by something from the other medication cocktail I take. What a mess I am. I take medication to keep from getting sick but those meds make me sick so I have to take more stuff to help that but they have side-effects too and it just keeps going until I have to stop somewhere and just deal with it because there is no frigging end to it.

I thought that maybe if I wrote about how miserable I've been that maybe the curse would be lifted. That's unlikely. I have decided, though, that I'm going to contact my nurse and spill my guts. Maybe I'll just send her a link to this entry.

My 48 year-old body is a walking glossary of medical problems. One of my most hideous ailments is plantar fasciitis. Look it up. It's disabling. Hey! What a coincidence. I'm on disability. But seriously, it's the WORST. I never imagined I'd have mobility issues like this with anything short of a broken leg or a double amputation. The pain coming from the bottoms of my feet is second only to what that poor captive writer must have felt in the movie Misery (with Kathy Bates and James Caan.)

I've had cortisone injections in both heels twice now but that just masks the issue. The podiatrist says we need to find the cause. "We?" I haven't gone back because I'm afraid he'll want to cut tendons in my feet and that scares me. So I suffer. What a loser I'm sounding like to myself.

Enough for now. Go check out my photos on Flickr to see what else I've been up to. I do manage to have a life even though for the most part I'd rather be dead. No, I take that back. I'll feel much better after election day when enough people come to their senses and begin to put America back together again.

I advise all who read, though, to stock up on food, buy a gun and prepare to take back the country the old fashioned way in case this election gets stolen too. Enough is enough!

Okay, now to write that letter to my nurse.....

She Went There

Yesterday was spent running errands to help Brad get ready for his road trip with his mom. They left this morning for Primm, Nevada which I'm not sure is really a town. It's mainly a large outlet mall a few miles from Las Vegas that has two or three casino hotels. Something for each of them.

The most important errand was to get an oil and filter change in Brad's Jeep. Second to that was a trip to the car wash although now I'm wondering how different the day might have turned out if I'd done things in a different order.

To digress for a moment, I need to mention that I've had situations in the past when I've gone to pick up my car after having it serviced only to find that the presents on my radio have been erased (explained by the disconnection of the battery during service) and the unexpected jolt of having music not to my liking come blaring out of the stereo upon start-up. The latter was the case when the car was supposed to have been road tested to find the origin of a squeaky rattle. And it was then that I exploded like a microwaved egg at the service manager. I leave my radio OFF and expect it to be OFF when I pick it up. Anyway, back to the story:

And so was the case yesterday. I really didn't expect to get back to the car, start it up and hear hip-hop rap come blasting out of the stereo. The people at the new Wal-Mart at Hegenberger Road in Oakland are all pretty nice and so I was very surprised. I was also surprised that it smelled like french fries inside the car too.

I comtemplated going back inside to complain but just blew it off because I had to keep moving. Brad was leaving work early and I still had to go to the car wash, pick up clothes from the cleaners and get back to San Leandro BART to fetch him.

I adjusted the volume, scanned for a better radio station and drove off. And I guess the woman in the photo above pulled out of her parking spot at about the same time.

As we approached the same intersection, she asserted her right-of-way by laying on the horn as she passed through. At the light I leaned out of my window and asked her why she honked at me like that. (It was NOT necessary.) She accused me of not paying attention and said she "had to protect her family."

I said "Your horn isn't going to save your life but some better driving skills might come in handy," thinking back to the days when driver's education was taught in public schools. I had no idea at the time what condition her car was in, other than the oxidized paint, because we were parallel.

She shouted a couple of other ignorant things at me and added "..besides, your need to wash your car." The insults! As a matter of fact, I was on my way to South Shore Car Wash in Alameda.

So I said "As a matter of fact I'm on my way to the car wash right now - and I suppose you're on your way to get yours painted?" And that's when she told me to have a good day. At the next light I remembered that my camera was in the car and took a quick shot of them before we went our separate ways.

When I viewed this online and saw the cracked lights, cracked windshield, missing chrome, variety of wheel covers (I think only one was a "spinner") I laughed out loud. I doubt seriously this car is even registered. You really must click ont he photo to see a larger version. It's a total mess. And late last night, a fellow Flickr photographer pointed out that the impound marks are still visible on the windshield.

Since I'm writing a story I might just as well keep going.

At the car wash, another strange thing happened. I walked around taking photos when I noticed Brad's Jeep coming out of the mechanized part of the wash. A worker got in and instead of driving it to the finishing area he drove it off the lot, out to Shoreline Drive and headed East out of sight!

When I went inside to ask what was going on I was told to relax. "We haven't lost a car in 40 years," she said. But I couldn't help but wonder how many had been stolen. Still, it wasn't my car so I'd really have hated to have to come home and tell Brad his car had been stolen from the car wash.

It turns out that the alleged car thief was simply putting it through the wash a second time. When it was done, though, I didn't give him a tip. I was still unnerved by witnessing Brad's car disappear right before my eyes.

After picking up his shirts from the cleaners I headed back to San Leandro, driving on a street I don't usually take. That's when I noticed something new in the neighborhood: Speed Lumps. And here's the photo to prove it.

Was jumping out of the car and snapping photos of this worth losing a lens cap? I don't know but I think this is where I last saw it.

Now, back to the main story, it was also about this time that I realized that there was something wrong with the radio preset buttons. I know for certain Brad doesn't listen to hip-hop or rap but his first two presets had been changed to exactly that.

And he hit the roof when I told him about it. He was on the phone talking to a store manager within minutes. That's when we found out that the clerk failed to give me a detailed invoice of the service performed which included the names of the people who worked on the car. (Something else to complain about.)

It was obvious I needed to make one more trip so I drove to Alameda to search for my lens cap (no luck) and back to Wal-Mart (store #5457 8400 Edgewater Drive Oakland CA 94612 (510)430-9606 Manager David George) to get the invoice.

I also had a chat with some people in the service department about the complaint. I spoke with Daryl (1120) to make sure that:

1- Listening to the customer's radio is not part of the oil change package and 2- There was no need for a road test afterward requiring the stereo to be tested as well 3- It was against store policy to re-program the customer's radio presets during any type of service order.

I think he got the message that Steven (1179) and the rest of the crew are going to be keel-hauled for this in a letter with copies going to just about every level.

And just to show that a cranky old man can still be benevolent, I'm not going to mention the smell of french fries.

After, before and during all of this I've found myself wondering why I'm doing business with Wal-Mart anyway. Fortunately the day ended well. Nothing else happened.

Freak Magnet

Public transportation makes me nervous. Very nervous. I don't know all those people and they don't know me. We can see each other and there isn't anything I can do about it.

People cough, talk, listen to music, stink, eat and do all sorts of things other than sit or stand politely and try to remain invisible or otherwise unobtrusive.

BART is particularly heinous. The trains go through all kinds of neighborhoods. When the doors open an exchange of hostages takes place.

I've hated BART since my first ride on it back in the late '70's. It was a bad experience not because of the trip to San Francisco but the trip home.

Going to the city I was appalled by the extreme scenes of poverty, decay and filth below. I'd never seen anything like it inside the U.S. and didn't expect to see it in the bay area.

On the way home later that night, after seeing a play at the Curran Theater, we witnessed a fight in the station while waiting for our train back to Oakland. Two guys beat up a presumably queer black man, throwing him down onto the tracks. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know whether to go to his defense or stay put in case I had to defend my "date." Neither option settled well with me and I've thought about my decision ever since.

Fortunately my trips on BART are now very rare even though I go to the San Leandro station every morning and evening to deliver and retrieve Brad to and from his commute to San Francisco.

The photo above was taken on my last trip. I met up with Brad in SF to go see the new Bloomingdale's store which was about to open to the public.

I didn't want to schlep around inside a nice store like that looking like a hobo so I put on some of my better clothes, shaved, combed my hair and wore a sport coat. It was called "dressing for success" back in the late '80's at my job in the reservation center. (Which made little sense since people on the phone had no idea what you were wearing.) I, for one, never dressed for success.

Wearing three layers always makes me feel hot and being on BART makes me nervous. So I start to perspire shortly after getting dressed. It's very uncomfortable. And that day turned out to be warmer than expected making things even worse.

Before even leaving the San Leandro station, I had to pee. Bad. So I cautiously approached the station agent and politely asked her how one goes about getting access to the toilets, fearing I might get my head snapped off or be told that they weren't working and I'd have to go back to the car and pee in a cup; a particularly delicate and dangerous thing to do. She was incredibly nice and called me "sir" more than once. "It's the jacket," I thought to myself. "I look nice."

Maybe it was the camera. It's big. Or maybe a combination of both the camera and the jacket. Because what happened next really perplexed Brad when I told him about it later because, he said, people don't usually strike up conversations on BART.

Right. Maybe not during commute hours. But during off hours, the freaks ride the trains.

So I was pleased to find that the train was quite empty. There was plenty of room for everyone to have their own personal space. I fidgeted, looked out the window, read part of an abandoned newspaper and then put its pages back into sequence when I was done. I whipped out my camera and pointed it all around, looking for a good shot. And then I heard a voice coming from someone who had entered my personal space without an invitation.

"Aren't you afraid of getting into trouble for taking photos on BART?"

For a split second I thought it was BART Police. But it wasn't. It was a guy, younger than me, who looked and sounded like he might have been from Thailand.

Puh-leeze, I thought, and just shook my head.

"Are you freelance?"

"No," I said, wanting the conversation to end there.

"Oh, so you work for someone!"

"No." I thought maybe he'd think I didn't understand English when really I just didn't want to breathe his used air.

"I know," he said, "you're pa-pa-rot-zee!" (That was just plain stupid.) He was acting like he'd just met a celebrity and it was making me extra nervous.

I said "What? No." before I remembered that I didn't know English.

"That looks like the kind of camera they use. Is it?"

Of course my camera isn't the kind they use. The guy was a moron. And he kept warning me about getting into trouble for taking photos. So I got out my cell phone and pretended to listen to voice messages, just to end our weird conversation.

We were in the transbay tube where there's no signal at all. But it's the only thing I could think of. I was nervous, sweating and irritated and, for all he knew, was about to detonate a bomb using my new VirginMobile cell phone. I have to admit that I toyed with that idea (the false impression) just to mess with him a little bit. He did watch me the whole time.

So I was rather pleased with myself when he asked me which station I was going to. Mayybe he didn't like the way I was fidgeting with my cell phone and wiping the sweat off my brow. Maybe I looked nervous and it made him nervous. Maybe he wanted to ask me out for a drink. In any event, he got off the train one stop before mine, not bothering to say goodbye. And I was left to wonder what he was really thinking but very glad to be rid of him.

It seeme like most of the time I'm totally invisible when I'm in public. People walk straight into me. But for some reason that day was different. And since I always have my camera with me, I'm guessing it was the sport coat.

If it's going to turn me into a freak magnet, I'll remain unshaven with jeans and T-shirt and regular bed-hair (without gel) like every other hobo on BART.

Going Forward, Facing Backwards

Last year at this time I was in Washington D.C. attending the national Association of Zoo and Aquarium Docents (AZAD) conference. But that was just my convenient, albeit worthy, cover story.

Let me see. How do I tie two story lines together? I'll start back in 2004. Was it really that long ago? I got an email from someone I've known since 5th grade. She had always been one of my most favorite people and one of only two friends who I had my picture taken with after our high school graduation ceremony. But after that night I lost contact with almost everyone.

Charlene was an exception, but just briefly. I was driving to work at my job as a travel agent in Salt Lake City one morning, scanning the dial for a radio station, when I heard her voice. She was doing the news for a country and western station. I was thrilled for a couple of reasons. First, I missed her friendship and second, it was great knowing that she was putting her exceptional talent to such good use. Her dramatic style, comic timing and delicious personality was what attracted me to her way back in 1968! In fact I thought it was funny that she was doing the news because I knew how hard it was for her to not be funny!

I called her radio station from work and we had a nice chat. But after that came a gap of some twenty five years. That's a long time. Five minutes is a long time sometimes. But during that long, long quarter-century when I managed to lose contact with essentially everyone from my childhood, came a marvelous invention: the Internet!

During those years I was blind to what was happening in the computer revolution. I was selling tickets, loading passengers and baggage onto airplanes at the Oakland, CA airport and working myself into a disabling condition in both arms typing furious using the United Airlines computer systems. One of my friends talked about buying a "Mac" but I had no idea what she was talking about. Other friends started having conversations including words like "email address" and "PC" but it just didn't register. But I do remember wondering why in the world anyone would spend hard-earned money on a home computer just to keep in contact with friends. Ha!

But, lest I digress too far, by the time I got something from Classmates.com in my "snail mail" I must have had some idea what was going on. It made me think about all the people from school and wonder what had become of everyone. But not so much that I felt like I needed to rush out and buy a computer.

Okay, now, fast forward about 14 more years. By then I owned a computer and had learned to search. I had found Charlene's name on Classmates.com but was too cheap to pay their membership fee to get her email address. And because she hadn't contacted me, I figured that: 1-She was as cash-poor as me, or 2-She would have contacted me already if she had cared to.

Those were rough years for me. I avoided class reunions because I was supposed to have been a big movie director by then but only ended up as a travel agent and airline slave. I didn't reach out to anyone because I was ashamed for being a big failure.

That didn't stop me from trying to find out about former classmates and friends though. And Charlene was the one I searched for the most. About two years ago I thought I'd zeroed in on her. But being unable to find a current photo I couldn't be sure. And it didn't make sense that she would be working for a radio station in the Washington D.C. area. I don't know why not, though. I had moved to the west coast.

And at that same time, one day out of the blue, I got an email from her asking me if I was the Jim Webb that she knew. I was so thrilled. And when she said that I was the only person from high school that she wanted to "reunite" with, it felt like blood was percolating up into my head and bringing the rest of my half-dead body back to life. And yes, it was the same person I had found in online searches and she was still in radio, now with an "abc.com" email address!

We wrote back and forth and chatted for hours on AOL Instant Messenger, covering just about everything. Weeks went by. And then came our chance to meet for the first time since that photo was taken.

I went along with Brad on a business trip to New York City and arranged for us to take Amtrak to D.C. afterward, stay with Charlene for a couple of nights and then fly home from there.

Well, that turned out to be a really great trip. And talk about a trip! Charlene's oldest daughter was about the same age as we were when we posed for that graduation photo. I think we both felt like we were in a perpetual commercial for Classmates.com. It was just that good.

When we left, she invited us to come back. At the time I felt like it would be highly unlikely that I'd ever be back in the D.C. area so imagine my surprise when I learned only a few weeks later that the AZAD conference was being hosted by the Washington Smithsonian National Zoo in just a few months! I immediately made plans to attend.

But only a few weeks before the conference I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. It was my first hospital confinement since an emergency unilateral epididymectomy in the early 1980's. But three weeks later I was almost as good as new and flying off to enjoy the company of fellow zoo people, Charlene and her fabulous cats and human family. It was a great trip. (Except for the return flights but I'll save that for another time.)

Oh, I nearly forgot about the other story line.

At the AZAD conference, Emily, the editor of our docent newsletter, was trying to get me to attend a workshop with her relating to editing or writing or something. I felt bad for not going after I said I would but the previous workshops I'd been to were incredibly crowded and overwhelmingly boring. I actually fell while asleep during one of them and if I hadn't been sitting next to a wall I might have hurt myself. But the International Spy Museum and just about everything else in Washington D.C. seemed much more worthwhile.

Thinking back now I have the feeling that Emily has been buttering me up for quite a long time. She just recently managed to get me to agree, without any resistance, to take over as editor of The Scoop after her last edition in 2006.

I should be petrified but I'm not. Just because my most recent practical experience was in 1976 is no reason to panic. All I have to do is learn how to use a computer program and I'm sure the skills I learned as Editor-in-Chief of the Tooele High School Buffalog will be just like riding that proverbial bicycle.

Okay, now I'm petrified. I haven't put that bicycle theory to the test either.

But all of this seems related somehow. All my old friends were so incredibly talented. I thought I was incredibly talented too until after I left Utah and got out into the job market with the rest of the poor cake-eating slobs.

Old friends, new friends - old skills, new applications - dreams of being a film director, making my own movies using a PC - loving animals, working at a zoo - Is it all coming together somehow? Maybe I'm actually going somewhere, possibly in the "right" direction, but just facing backwards.

Uncrowned

Around noon today I thought I felt something stuck between my teeth. Something didn't feel right and it was on my mind as we headed to San Jose for another visit to Macy's. If there's one kind of trouble I've had enough of in my life it's dental problems.

A few months ago I needed to have a molar "extracted." That means pulled out: tugged, yanked, twisted, pried and sometimes chiseled. Fortunately for me, only the first four techniques were used. It was not pleasant. For the curious, I took photos. They're in a set by themselves on Flickr.

People find it very hard to believe that when I was a kid and needed fillings, my Neanderthalian dentist didn't give anesthetic. I don't know how many times I had to suffer through sessions that seemed to last for hours as the cycle of drilling, screaming, sweating and crying would be followed by a moment of calm only to be followed by the startup of the drill and etcetera. All of this came rushing back to me years later during the movie Marathon Man. His excuse, I found out later, was that "kids are generally more frightened by needles than a little pain."

Asshole.

So I've been there, done that and don't wanna go back there no more. And I've had great luck finding new-age dentists who are more than willing to give as much anesthetic as an elephant would need and one who was very generous with the "gas."

But that's just it. I'm done, or at least I'd like to be. Today I put my finger in my mouth to see if I could figure out what was causing the strange sensation and a crown popped off. Yup. Right next door to ground zero from a few months ago.

I don't get all fainty or grossed out when that happens unless it stinks. Today it didn't. (Last time it did!) No, I see dollar signs and images of my wallet turning inside out and that cute little guy on the Monopoly board in jail - a.k.a. the "poorhouse." And that worries me because horizontal stripes are not flattering when you have a wider than desired torso. Ha! I know. That's out of date. But I positively hate orange clothing too.

With luck I thought I could just scrape out the old cement, clean the tooth, glue it back on and be done. I bought the junk at Long's and came home to work on it only to discover that the stump is a bit decayed. So I'll be calling UCSF on Monday to join the ranks of uninsured, common folk who go to the dental school as subjects for the students to practice on. Hopefully the cement I bought today will keep the loose crown stuck to the tooth until I can get there. I don't want it to come off and choke on it in the night.

Don't get me wrong. They're all thoroughly supervised. It's very refreshing and I have immense respect for everyone there. I just don't like the other patients. They're icky. And I don't like sitting in the waiting room with them. It's a relief when my student dentist comes to the doorway and calls me in.

So here we go again. Will I have it pulled? Crowned? One thing's for sure. I can't chew with two molars missing on one side, not normally at least. Stay tuned.

In other news: The current editor of the Oakland Zoo docent newsletter, Scoop, called today to give me a deadline for an article I need to write for next month's edition. I need to find a plant or tree that is or will be blooming in October to write about and have it done by Monday. Oh, and by the way, she wants me to take over her job in January for the next couple of years. Yikes! Somehow she thinks my ability to take a photo and my experience 30 years ago as Editor-in-Chief of my high school paper are good qualifications. I think she's just desperate to pass the torch.

Mystery: SOLVED

Last Saturday I decided I had to have a haircut and just let my car take me to Alameda since I'm more comfortable there than in San Leandro.

Anyhow, even though I wanted to save money and find a cheap but good haircut somewhere, I decided to go back to Tomo and get a haircut from whomever was available. It didn't matter. I called first and got an appointment with someone whose name I could not understand.

When I arrived, early, I was told that "____" was running late, which was fine with me, but I wanted to know who "____" was so I asked the receptionist to say and then spell the name.

"J a f e t."

Who? I've been going there for years and had never heard that name before. It didn't matter. I was just glad that it was a "he" because I've had bad luck with haircuts from "shes."

It never dawned on me that they'd hired someone to take Joey's space. But that's who Jafet was; his replacement. Things were working out.

I'm still a little concerned about his haircut but he gets big bonus points for:
1- NOT using the electric clippers
2- Having very specific opinions about his style
3- Giving a nice shampoo afterwards

Unfortunately he loses points because:
1- He continually sprayed my head with a bottle that spit more than it sprayed and the water was cold. The collar and back of my shirt (a polo) was drenched by the time I left.
2- My head was so wet with water and gel that I looked like I'd just gotten out of the shower when I left the shop. I don't do my hair like that.

But that's okay because it was his first time. I let new stylists do their thing at first and then let them know what MY specific opinions are all about later.

One of the reasons I told myself it was okay to go back to Tomo was I figured I could get more information about what happened to Joey. And I did.

Jafet told me Joey said he was "over" cutting hair and handed me one of his new business cards. It was one of those ceramics places at the former Southshore Center when you paint and fire your own mugs and stuff.

So the mystery is solved. And now I'm just annoyed. And hurt. Everyone once in a while in life I think I'm worth more than how I'm treated and I really thought I was a decent client and friend. Maybe I wasn't. Maybe it was all about exchanging money for service and nothing more. Boy do I feel stupid. Really foolish.

Joey, good luck with your new business. I thought very highly of your service.

A Major, Major Story

I'd been in that building before, walking in, limping in, floating in and often without any recollection of how I ended up there. But I haven't really been there in over three years. I only go there when I'm asleep.

A bit of unfinished business in the back of my mind sends a message to another part of my brain that I must return. But I'm asleep. So another part of my psyche panics and puts together a scenario so something is ready for me when I arrive at that place again.

Five years ago I wondered if I was still asleep but, except for one detail, things seemed fairly normal. My window was down a little and the radio tuned to an FM station that didn't broadcast much of anything but music. So it seemed strange that I was hearing people talking. And their words weren't prepared like in a chatty commercial. I turned up the volume.

It was the words "..there's a major, major news story coming out of New York City this morning involving an aircraft that has crashed into the world trade center.." I switched the radio over to AM news, curious about why they were calling it a "major" story. And that's when the music and the cold air on my cheeks left off waking me up ended and unimaginable words entering my sleeping mind took over.

What started in New York City that morning by the light of day replays by night on location in the office building on Powell Street in San Francisco where I worked.

The idea of writing about my dreams here, in this blog, came to me after my last bad dream. You can't really kill your enemy and be sure it's dead unless you face it and see its severed head.
Although the end of my career at United Airlines was probably already in the cards, the closing of our office and furlough of everyone there is indelibly linked to the events of 9/11. We lost planes and passengers that day in the most terrible way imaginable. Any time a passenger is hurt or killed or a plane crashes, the entire aviation industry "family" grieves as if it was their own customer or crewmember or airplane. It's the hideous opposite of what you work for every day.

The first time it happened to me, as an official member of the airline industry family, was just after I was hired by United. A former PSA employee pulled out a gun and shot people aboard a flight from LA to SFO causing the plane to crash and kill everyone on board who survived his rampage. The newsflash came across the TV while I was in the break room.

First I was sickened and then angry. And I was afraid something like that might happen at United. Within hours I asked the first management-type person who came by what we would do if something like that happened at UA.

So I guess the real nightmares started a long time ago, certainly a long time before 2001. My innocence ended when that PSA flight went down. And that overwhelming sadness happened many times between 1987 and 2001.

But 9/11 was all I could stand. It put me over the edge. It was over. I'd had enough. From that day on it was like the world had ended and I'd been left behind to suffer with the sinners.

For the first week most of us were drawing emergency power from an unknown resource somewhere deep inside that kept us functioning even though the world was in chaos. We reported for duty, put on the headsets and did our jobs or what seemed like out job should be. We talked, typed, reassured, listened. Dear God in Heaven above, how we listened! People cried, babbled, pleaded and screamed at us.

First the planes started taking off again, and we felt relieved. Then the cancellations started pouring in and it felt like our future was being drained through a huge crack somewhere. The schedules started getting cut. Managers moved about the office with pale faces, sometimes repeating what they'd heard in meetings about how much money we were losing every day.

Our survival was in question.

It took a few weeks but I started getting sick. Every morning as I passed the spot where I first heard those words, "..a major, major news story.." I became physically ill. My hands went numb and my head felt like it was floating in a lake at night, detached from my body. My stomach churned as the profile of the San Francisco skyline became visible and the horizon brightened with the approach of the sun and another day.

I don't know how many times I threw up on the way to work. The first time it happened I made it off the Bay Bridge and down to a city street where nobody could see me before hurling out my car window. But I didn't always make it that far. It became routine. I had to look for new streets to turn onto because I didn't want to start drawing an audience.

Did I tell anyone? Did anyone ask how we were? I don't remember. But I do remember management passing out a paper with lists of the warning signs of stress and depression. But airline people are tough and don't often seek help. There's a lot of pressure to just "handle it," especially at the airports in the customer service area.

Now it's the five-year anniversary of 9/11. And I don't care to make it a landmark sort of anniversary because I don't want to go through it all again. It's been regurgitated so many times by the president and his people that I want to scream. Something holy has been stolen and made to do to unholy things for the people that want to benefit from its power.

I only want the past to realize that it doesn't belong in my dreams any more. I don't want to go back to the building on Powell Street by day or night. My subconscious needs to realize that it's over. The job is done.

But like the other night, I end up back in that building. Sometimes I go back to get something I left behind and find other people secretly still working there. I've dreamt that I'm still working and nothing has changed except that I've somehow acquired the ability to levitate and I go happily about, floating from office to office only to realize my folly and suddenly lose my power and end up on the floor at the feet of a supervisor who offers me a piece of her retirement cake.

The other night I was there again and found a whole floor of the building I'd never seen before. I discovered what seemed to be a happy and comfortable apartment that looked like someone had just stepped out for a minute except I knew that it had been many years.

I snooped, just curious at first. And then I started finding things I wanted to keep. There were a couple of hand-made quilts rolled and put away in a closet. I discovered a chair made by a prominent Danish designer. It wasn't usable since the seat was at a 60 degree angle, but I wanted it anyway. And as I made plans to start collecting things I heard voices and realized I was trapped. A realtor was showing the place to a young couple. So I pretended to have the same idea in mind and looked for a way out.

Suddenly a woman burst through a back door and said "I know why you're here! You've come to see my snakes.." She opened up a large cloth bag and hastily brought out a fat grey snake and pushed its head toward mine.

I screamed and ran out the door she came in through, my heartbeat pounding so hard my head hurt.

That's when I woke up, heart beating just like it was in the dream. And I was sweating.

Now I sit here, writing down this nonsense with no obvious way to conclude. I must still sleep though I rarely awake feeling refreshed. The joys and demons of my waking life are still at odds with each other like adversaries on a giant Teeter Totter. At times I want to be dead and finished with all this. But I know there's still something still out there waiting to be discovered. I don't know if it's a person or belief or some kind of understanding. I just know that I'm still not finished here and if 9/11 happens a hundred more times before I figure out what it is, I'll have to survive them all.

Ha! I remember when I asked my mom if I could take something of hers to school for show-and-tell in second grade. It was a huge, rough garnet still embedded in stone. She told me "Yes, but if you lose it, don't come home."

Sometimes I feel like I'm searching for that garnet.

The Boys of Summer

After I learned that our friend was bringing her two young boys to the house for Labor Day, I had some time to let it all sink in and come up with a plan.

The youngest one never was too much of a problem but the oldest is another story. He earned the nicknames of "Damien," "Little Nicky," and others that I've forgotten because his behavior was so bad that he could only be the spawn of Satan. Only a child of such lineage could scream for hours on end, create havoc at every step and then perform a grand finale of such magnitude that I'm surprised the lights stayed on.

But things have improved. I suspect his mother is medicating him but it's possible that he's just growing up. In the old days I'd guess that Dad had "knocked some sense into him" but that probably isn't the case.

I guess my exposure to children at the zoo has had a remarkable effect on me. Now that I realize they're actually quite cute and fun and very, VERY precious, once again I'm back to wishing that I had some in my life so that I could experience at least a small amount of what it's like to have my own. It would have been easier when I was younger and I don't really like it when kids think I'm elderly, but I can't blame them. I move like I'm 95 years old.

Anyway, I thought taking the kids to the pool could be fun so I called up their mom the day before and extended the invitation. This would accomplish a few things:
1- Give their mom and our other guests some relief,
2- Increase the chances that our "things" would survive their visit,
3- Be a right nice thing for me to do,
4- Give me the chance to prove I can be trusted.

As it turned out, they couldn't wait to go and from their point of view couldn't get ready soon enough. Their mom told them I had her authority to "spank" them if they misbehaved and I added "or hold you under" quietly so she couldn't hear. And off we went for the fairly long walk past all the garage doors, through the three locked gates to the pool, the two boys talking simultaneously and incessantly the whole way.

I didn't ever intend to get in the water with them. I am too white, jiggly and hideous to be seen without clothes. But once we arrived I did pull off my shoes and socks and sit with my feet in the water. It was a beautiful day and the pool refreshingly cool. The kids didn't waste any time getting in but almost immediately I realized there was a problem. Those damn wasps that are plaguing the complex right now are also landing in the water. And I don't blame the kids for not wanting to get into the water with a bunch of floating bugs.

The youngest didn't have much of a problem. He was restricted to the steps where he could hold on anyway. But the older of the two was kind of a sissy about it. (I think he's going to have a full resume of issues for a future psychologist.) I took a couple of dead wasps out with my hands and promised that was all of them, something I realized at the time I had absolutely no authority to do, and told him to git swimmin. But the older boy kept saying there were still more bees in the pool.

And, yes, they both just kept talking. Talking talking talking talking until I nearly started belting out an Ethel Merman song as loud as I could.

Realizing that he was right and my eyesight was pure crap, I found the pool cleaning net and started plucking live and dead wasps out of the pool. It was a losing battle, though, because the stupid things seemed to land in the water as fast as I'd pluck them out. So I gave up.

I was sad about being so self-conscious because I really wanted to shed my clothes and get in the water. I don't suppose the kids would have said anything about my scary body. I even fantasized about being in such great shape and so totally uninhibited that I would pull of my shirt, drop my pants and jump in wearing only my cute black briefs. (Who would care about that?) I've known and admired people who are at ease with themselves like that.

I took some photos of the kids (but can't post them because their mom said "no") and several of half-drowned and dead wasps. The youngest boy didn't understand what "don't put your grimey little fingers on my lens" and "you splash this camera and it'll be the LAST thing you do" meant. (tee hee hee, not really) Finally I got the younger one to get out of the pool, got them both dried off and we went back to the house. They were then back in their mother's custody after a report on their excellent behavior.

Later, we were all in the kitchen. Their mom (who also just kept talking talking talking talking talking) was helping with dishes and stuff and the kids started to get in the way. The litle pre-schooler got caught throwing fridge magnets at the cat. (bad Karma!) That's when I amazed even myself. Brace yourselves, friends who know me well. I took him into the living room, hugged him and said I loved him just as much as I love my cat and would never throw anything at HIM. Then we plopped down in front of the TV and watched cartoons.

A little while later he held my hand, hugged me and said "I love you."

When they were gone and the house was quiet again, it felt empty. I found myself thinking, for a while, that maybe my life has been a big selfish waste of time. But I just couldn't live a day longer if I believed that to be true. So, true or not, in the interest of life I will deny it.

PROUD TO BE FROM UTAH

There's a title you don't see very often unless it's accompanied by a photo of some big-haired woman or a family of 96 gathering for Sunday dinner.

On Thursday, the mayor of Salt Lake City spoke the truth while George Bush was there, playing it safe in a safe place in a safe state. If I still lived anywhere within driving distance to SLC I would have been at the protest where Mayor Rocky Anderson gave a passionate speech that "tells it like it is."

I know what it's like to be on both sides. I understand completely the notion of being a faithful follower. But what so many people in Utah and elsewhere have forgotten is that when the leaders have strayed off course, it's up to the people to do something about it. NO BLIND FAITH.

Usually a reference to Utah is a joke. I've lived with them all my life. You can hear them coming after "you're from Utah?" People have all kinds of wacky ideas. After today my attitude is "YES!"

Please take a few minutes and read what Mayor Anderson had the guts to say with the president just a few blocks away. It's brilliant.

http://www.slcgov.com/mayor/speeches/2006%20speeches/SPdemonstration83006.pdf
or watch it here:
http://kutv.com/video/?id=18850@kutv.dayport.com

Thank you.

Bad Movies, Bad Gas, Hair and Brunch

No word about or from Joey. I had Brad call Tomo tonight and see if he could pump the receptionist for information. All she told him was that Joey is "no longer cutting hair." Crap. So I'm one step closer to writing to Joe Ducey at channel 4 to see what HE plans to do.

Dad called the other night. My heart stopped beating for a few seconds and then caught up really fast because he never calls any more. But he was just letting me know that his computer was sick again and was going out for repair. How inconvenient! We'll have to actually resort to writing or calling if we want to communicate. I don't even know how I would go about writing a letter the old fashioned way. Certainly I wouldn't use a pen and paper.


Sunday was one of the most miserable days in recent memory. I haven't felt well since returning from the road trip. My foot pain (plantar fasciitis) is back and just killing me. I had to take constant pain meds to get through the trip but I stopped when we got home. And I feel excessively tired too. I'm like a junkie when I travel. I wash Vicodin down with gallons of Dr. Pepper and the combination seems to keep me going.

Anyhow, Sunday I felt like crap but had to spiff up a bit to celebrate a birthday with friends.

I was so swolen that I couldn't wear the shirt I picked out and had to find another. And I made the mistake of wearing briefs that were one size too small. I just wasn't thinking. And of course brunch was a buffet and I was determined to get my money's worth. Ugh. I thought I would explode. And the nice shoes I wore felt like bricks. I spent the day walking like Robbie the Robot but with a giant swolen gut.

Then we went to see a movie. In retrospect we made the 2nd best choice available. Idlewild. The SFGate little man, I read later, was merely in his seat at attention. We could have gone to see Little Miss Sunshine for which the little man is out of his seat clapping. But who knew. We didn't anticipate going to a movie or I would have done some research. The rest of the 75 movies playing at the megagargantuaplex in Dublin were pure crap. Idlewild had redeeming elements and wasn't that bad, but was, overall, a thumbs down in my humble opinion.

I'm ashamed of myself. I don't go to as many movies as I should and the ones I DO go to are really, really bad. Prior to Sunday, we saw The Devil Wears Prada on July 23rd. Yup, my birthday. At least the theater was cool. It was 115 degrees outside so I guess the $10.50 for 2 hours of comfort was kinda sorta worth it in a way. (But it sure was stupid.)

And folks, prior to July 23rd 2006 the previous movie I went out to see was July 23rd 2005. Brace yourselves. The choice was Willie Wonka or War of the Worlds with that homely twit who, in my physician's words, sucks the life out of every movie he's in, Tom Cruise. I chose War of the Worlds. And what a piece of crap THAT was. I think it was released on DVD that same afternoon and long forgotten by the next day.

How many days hath August? I never learned that 19th century ditty. Oh good. I have a couple more days to get my car smogged. What a racket that is.

And as I ramble to a close, tonight I go to bed angry, once again, about the GM conspiracy to eliminate all electric trolleys in America and replace them with filthy, gas guzzling exhaust belching busses. Yes, that's old news but it was such a horrendous crime against nature and a filthy backroom political deal that I think GM should be forced somehow to bring trolleys back to every city they screwed with their bus deal.

No, I'm not hallucinating. I've heard about this before but tonight an episode of History Detectives on PBS brought the subject up again. http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigations/410_electric_car.html

There. Almost every day I think to myself that the world is really screwed up. We're doomed. And I don't know where to go for a good haircut. I'm tempted to just get out the Wahl clippers and cut it all off except that I doubt it would make me feel any better.

Fat, Old AND Bald?

Day 2.
No word from Joey. I'm starting to hear from people who think that "bald is in." They're saying "Go for it" even when I remind them how I looked the last time I got happy with the Wahl clippers.

This photo was taken 5 years ago at the Volcano House on the big island of Hawaii. The steam vents were clouding up my Armanis. The face is now a bit fatter and the moustache is mostly gray. I'm looking old.

Let's just try this all in a sentence:
Have you seen Jim lately? He's looking very fat, old and bald.

Sorry. That doesn't work for me. I haven't given up on finding Joey because I'd rather hear "Oh look! There's that fat, old Jim with the great haircut."

HELP ME!

"Joey doesn't work here any more."

"Joey doesn't work here any more." Those were the words that have sent my world wobbling on its axis.

I called Tomo in Alameda this afternoon with my fingers crossed, hoping to make an appointment for a haircut either tomorrow afternoon or Wednesday. I never know what to expect. I could hear "Joey's on vacation" or "His first available appointment is September 19th" or "What time would be good for you?" But today's bad news took me quite by surprise. The receptionist didn't offer any further information and I didn't ask although I should have. Maybe I'll call back tomorrow and see what I can find out.

Before I start to panic or mourn, I need more information. Fortunately I have his email address and, yes, I wrote. And as I did I started worrying about not getting an answer. What if he doesn't want to cut my hair any more and doesn't write back? Should I have been a bigger tipper? Over several years of regular and faithful patronage I only went there with slept-in hair ONE time.

I've only had three excellent relationships with stylists (is that the right word?)over the last 30 years. Joey has been cutting my hair for several years. Prior to that was a man who had a heart attack one day on the way to work and crashed his car into a concrete wall. They weren't sure which caused his death. And before that was Andi, the brightest of them all. She gave me a mullet before they were trendy. I had Tom Bailey's hair before The Thompson Twins were famous. But she left town to move on to Hollywood and I never saw her again.

Granted, I could save a lot of money by being less fussy about my hair. I seldom comb it anyway. Maybe I should invest in a Flowbee, if they're still available, and master it. Shaving the head is a last option. I came very near to trying that once and it wasn't pretty. I ended up scaring a whole shipload of people and one of my best friends who hadn't seen me in a while. Sorry, Leslie. Oh, and sorry about scaring you with the pierced nipples too. They're long gone now, in case you didn't know. (The jewelry, not the nipples.)

So I may have to go out looking for a new cosmetologist. (Is that the right word?) Since I know that channel 4's Joe Ducey also sees Joey, I may have to find out what he plans to do. Maybe we can split the cost of a Flowbee and do each other with it.

Night Bandits

Tonight I can't upload a photo because I didn't take a picture. I couldn't. I locked myself out of the house even though the little voice in my head was screaming "put your keys in your pocket!"

I was watching the BBC news reports about the foiled terror plot. It was just about midnight and the cats were sleeping on the back of the sofa like bookends. I heard a crash that seemed to come from outside. Cats are great at times like this because they tend to look directly at where the sound comes from. Well both of them were looking at the front door, wide-eyed and sort of frozen in time. I thought it was a broken window so I headed outside to the courtyard to see what it was.

On the way out I thought I'd adjusted the lock so I could get back in. That's when the voice in my head told me to get my keys in kind of a "don't say I didn't tell you" tone of, uh, imagined voice. But I didn't know yet that the door locked behind me.

I headed out into the courtyard we share with two other neighbors and the first thing that caught my eye, expecting to see burglars or a broken window, was the shadows of several small creatures coming down the stairway across the way. They were the cutest raccoons you ever saw and the littlest ones weren't much bigger than my cats.

They walked across the path and went about 5 feet up a tree, stopped and looked at me. They were only a few feet away and I could hear them breathing. So I started talking to them like they were my pets. "You're bad little boys aren't you! Yes you are! What did you break you naughty, naughty critters?" There were plants, soil, broken things and a basket all down the stairway and a basket that had probably bounced several times before landing near the mailboxes.

These raccoons stole my heart. They were adorable and probably quite tame. And they just stayed there in the bottom branches of the tree saying "take our picture!" But when I hurried to get my camera, that's when I realized I was locked out. My neighbor had heard the clatter and had now come outside to see what was the matter. I was ringing the doorbell repeatedly trying to wake Brad up, to no avail. Eventually he woke up and came downstairs to let me in, looking really scary, and didn't bother to ask what the "situation" was outside that got me locked out in the first place. He DID notice that there were 8 phone messages and said "who's been calling?" Uh, that would have to be me, using the neighbors cell phone trying to wake the dead.

Tomorrow he'll wonder who called his cell phone about ten times at midnight.

The Work of Relaxation

The camping trip, the camping trip. I mentioned to a few people that we were going on another one of our camping trips and now everybody wants to know how it went. Did I make it sound like it was going to be memorable?

I promised someone that my photos would make it seem like they had been there too. Whoa! Where did I get that kind of confidence? And it's so not true. I censor my own photos to such an extent that you get a different, but not entirely wrong, impression of the truth. It's a skill.

This is the point where I intended to upload a photo but due to some technical problem, it seems I'm unable. This happens frequently and it really bugs me. Could it be me?

So the thing that made this camping trip different was that we (we?) invited 4 other friends to join Sam, Steve, Brad and myself for the weekend. And it couldn't have turned out better. We had two adjacent campsites each with a picnic table and fire pit. One of the tables was situated in the center of a ring of redwoods. That's where we set up the gazebo and main cooking and dining area. The gazebo keeps stuff from falling on the food and, in sunnier campsites, keeps us shaded. On the other end at our campsite we used the fire pit for after dinner socializing and S'more making. This time we remembered to take a broom and so I went about sweeping all around the tables and even made a path between the redwoods going between the two sites. Of course our plastic pink flamingos were there to show the way!

The best part of the trip, for me, was the long stroll on Saturday afternoon on a trail that goes down to and along the stream. We'd camped there one other time a few years ago and I've been kicking myself ever since because I didn't take my video camera. So I was happy this time to find that it was as beautiful as I remembered and took quite a few still photos with my digital camera.

At the bottom of the trail when you first reach the stream, there's a wide bend where people were out playing and swimming with their kids. I watched for a while and then noticed a group of ducks in the shadows of the ferns who seemed to be trying to swim upstream but were a little wary of the humans in their path. A few minutes after I started walking along the path I heard a lot of flapping and splashing and turned to see the ducks going upstream like they'd lit a rocket. I managed to snap a couple of photos as they disappeared around the bend.

I also enjoyed watching a red dragonfly take off from its perch over the water, do a figure 8 recon flight over the stream and return to the same perch. I watched it do this same routine over and over again. It was too far away to get a good closeup shot but I tried. Later I found a small blue dragonfly on a rock in the middle of the water and snapped his photo too, discovering after getting home that there was a fly on the rock too.

I was gone so long that I missed lunch. But that wasn't an issue for me because we'd eaten a big breakfast, something I don't usually do. The thing about camping is you have to start dinner early or you end up eating, cleaning up and doing dishes in the dark. "Quiet Time" is usually 10PM and I'm a real bitch when it comes to conforming to that rule. When I want to go to bed, I want it quiet so I insist that if people are going to be up past 10PM that they be extremely quiet, just for common courtesy. I've been known to shout at people who make too much noise, even total strangers.

The hardest thing about camping, for me, is the work involved with packing up, unpacking, and setting up all in the same day and doing the same in reverse on the going home day. Maybe that's why I haven't written about the trip until now. I was still tired from the work of relaxation.

The Cake Story and the Story of the Cake

(Click on the photo for a larger version. Give your eyes a break!)

Thanks again, Leslie and Macario (and Emma Rose) for the thoughtful birthday gift.

(The following is an excerpt from Leslie's Blog)

That backstory is that a few summers back Jim and his friend were in Hawai'i, going around the islands on a cruise, and hung out with us the day their ship was in port at Hilo. It happened to be Jim's birthday, and I baked him a pineapple upside down cake, with pineapple from our garden, and it was a hit.

This year I told Jim to come over for his birthday and I'd bake him another one, and when he wouldn't/couldn't/didn't, I went online and sent him a pineapple upside down cake.

For awhile it was an "alleged" birthday gift, as he describes it, because there was some discrepancy between my definition of "overnight delivery" (over one night) and the company's (one day after they actually send it out for delivery, whenever that happens to be). So after awhile I asked Jim if something from me had arrived and then for days we chatted about the "alleged birthday gift" --without him knowing what it was (he was worried it was going to be a bunch of hula dancers doing a singing telegram).

It finally showed up at his doorstep today. I loved getting to see "the rest of the story" in photos.

Aunt Ardis

I have a lot of trouble trying to upload photos to this blasted blog. Maybe that's one of the reasons I'm up so late because I try over and over and over again like I'm standing at the slot machines.

All I wanted to do tonight was post the obituary photo of my Aunt Ardis. She passed away in the early hours of the morning on July 23rd, much to the relief of the members of the family that wanted her suffering from Alzheimer's to end. She was 87 years old and lived an exemplary life of service and dedication to her family and church.

She was born in a rural setting and at a time when infant mortality was much higher. After her birth in 1919, her mother lost her next two infants in 1920 and 1921 shortly after they were born. The next child was my Aunt Beulah followed by Calvin, my father, and then Delma Jean, Elva, Fay (who died from polio in 1951), Gary and Herbert. Notice anything? All of the children who survived infancy were named in alphabetical order. I'll have to get the whole story on that.

I remember hearing stories about them taking Uncle Fay to Salt Lake City straight from the farm when he got sick and how he was frightened by the elevator. He was only 19. Sadly, polio landed him in an iron lung. He never recovered and his death affected his family deeply. My dad was 27 when he lost his little brother. He'd made it through WWII but nothing he could do could save his brother from a tiny virus.

Ardis is the first sibling since Fay to pass on. That was 55 years ago.

But my family has a rich pioneer heritage. It's one of those family history situations that can make you question if you really have what it takes to belong. People sacrificed to come to this country. They suffered plagues, famines, intolerance, hard work and meager circumstances. Their church called on them for further service, sacrifice and dedication. Yet the family stayed together and is still together. I'm the one who's on "the road not taken" and yet I still value all the things I've been taught. Though I've chosen a different path, I'm awfully proud of my family and respect the glue that holds us all together.

http://www.legacy.com/saltlaketribune/Obituaries.asp?Page=Lifestory&PersonId=18605579

An Inconvenient Heat Wave

The heat..the heat. It was fun at first, then it got ridiculously hot and has stayed hot. I haven't ever felt heat like this here in California. I wonder what the cats are thinking when they're stretched out downstairs on the floor like a sweater that's been laid out to dry. There are things I'd like to do but can't stand the profuse sweating. So I just sit quietly.

Last night the fog came in and the outside temperature dropped to around 60°. It felt great downstairs but the upstairs bedrooms stayed hot. There wasn't enough of a breeze to clear out the hot air. The fan didn't do much. It was still 75° inside when I woke up this morning at 7AM.

And now it's hot again. But the all time worst heat I've ever felt was on my birthday, last Sunday, when we left San Leandro at 2PM to go to Baker's Square in Pleasanton for lunch and a piece of banana cream pie. It was an unbearable 95° here but the temperature continued to rise as we got closer to the restaurant until it hit an unbelievable 115°. Un-be-lieve-able.

The restaurant was very comfortable. The pie was good. I'd been craving it for a long time. But when we walked outside it was like a blast furnace and this time I mean that as a literal analogy and not just an exaggerated description. As we drove home I kept thinking about that Twilight Zone episode where the world is being consumed by heat. Yikes. What a way to go.

The heat made me cranky but so did the fact that I spent $10.50 to see The Devil Wears Prada. That's a high price just to get some relief from the heat. I wanted to see An Inconvenient Truth but wasn't assertive enough to make that happen. At least that would have been more appropriate.

Somehow I came across an article about a U.S. Senator from Oklahoma who is still denying the whole global warming thing. Senator Jim Inhofe (R) ((of course)). He refutes every bit of evidence and says it's a mass conspiracy. What an idiot. He won't even concede that (even if it's a hoax) things like better gas mileage, alternative energy, cleaner air and lower emissions are a good thing and something we need to do.

See: http://www.tulsaworld.com/NewsStory.asp?ID=060722_Ne_A1_Heatw72040


My brother ended up in Oklahoma a few years ago. I was very distressed by that. He doesn't like it there and I hope he can leave A.S.A.P.. But until then, I hope he has the good sense to vote this guy out of office! Oh, dear Lord, I hope he doesn't support this idiot!!!

Blackmail and Eternal Friendship

If you hear from a friend who says he/she has some "heinous" photos of you from a long time ago, what do you think your first reaction would be? Blackmail?

Several years ago in a happier time and place when I worked for United Airlines at OAK, I joined two of my friends and co-workers for a weekend in Honolulu. The photo above was taken as we taxied to the runway. Obviously Julie had been drinking before checking in at the airport. On the other hand, I must have been suffering from malnutrition back then. Yikes.

During the flight, I must have loosened up a bit myself! I do not remember this photo being taken but I do remember explaining to the girls what a "swimmer's jock" was.

We found a cheap hotel room and planned to go snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. Apparently these weren't the only photos taken that I had completely forgotten about.

The hotel room was one of the saddest little hovels I've ever seen. I can't remember the name but it was a hostel, I think, intended mainly for Japanese tourist students. We paid for two beds and a rollaway. I, being the luckiest, got the rollaway. No, it was I, being the MAN, who got the rollaway. Ha!

I wouldn't have fit on the bed anyway. They were only 4 feet long. At least that's what I thought until we realized that they were pushed under a table at one end. The room itself was a big problem. You'd have thought that a room with two beds and a kitchenette would be large enough for three people, right? Of course. No. Not at all.

It was tiny. The rollaway was too large for the room. It took up all the available floor space including the entry a.k.a. the kitchenette. So I had to use the mattress to sleep on the floor where my feet ended up under Anne's bed, one of my arms under Julie's and the other arm, if extended, went into the bathroom. My head was down the hall in the kitchenette.

Waking up crippled and miserable, Julie took pictures of me trying to make coffee. For some reason she gets a big kick out of these images.

(Well, I have one or two she might get a kick out of too. But since she just send me a nice birthday card, I won't post them..)

I had never snorkeled before and had never planned to. I'll never forget trying to walk with flippers on and then trying to float/swim with flippers on. If you take a close look, my feet already qualified as flippers anyway so they really weren't necessary.

But don't we look darling standing there with our faces all scrunched up in those little masks!

This must havebeen taken before we got into the water because after being in the water, to my horror, my trunks were 90% transparent revealing that alluring "swimmer's jock" I had been showing off on the plane.

Okay. "How I Learned To Breathe Through a Snorkel" happened when I finished practicing and actually got horizontal and started floating around looking at cool stuff. The very first thing I saw was an eel. I panicked like a little girl with a bug in her hair. I just started screaming into my snorkel pipe which must have sounded like part of the soundtrack from "Exorcist." I remember splashing, trying to swim/float backwards and get away. I'll never forget its beady little eyes looking up at my big buggy eyes on the other side of the snorkel mask I'd spit into and rubbed down to make the view clearer, as instructed by the girls. It was an awful sight, above and below sea level.

It took some coaxing but I did go back out again but never where I couldn't immediately just stand up and run back to the beach across the top of the coral if need be.

Ah, it was a beautiful day and one that we all remember well. Anne, unfortunately, has since passed on ahead of us. But we will be friends eternally and when I catch up I'm going to be so proud that I never, ever showed the picture I took of her in that hotel room to another living soul. (She made me promise.) She's tough and, yes, she scared me a little.

Bizarre! and, once again, George Bush is a Retard

I really suck when it comes to maintaining a regular blog. I've been dividing my efforts writing too much description in the photos I upload to flickr. Well, not really. But sometimes when I'm typing away I think, "I could use this on that damn blog that nobody reads."

That reminds me of my mother again. She referred to my blog once as my "blob" and I just ignored it thinking she was trying to be funny. I haven't always been able to tell when she was trying to be funny and when she was just funny by default.

Once my sister was instructed to go downstairs and get a loaf of bread out of the freezer that she'd bought at the church bazaar. A few minutes later I heard laughing. She called me downstairs to ask if I knew which loaf of bread she wanted; the one that was obviously a loaf of bread or the one with the little label marked "bizarre bread."

Okay so the really big news, besides the gigantic spider I nearly got eaten by and managed to kill on the patio, is that this Sunday is my 48th birthday. It's safe to make that announcement here because nobody reads this anyway. It's kind of amazing to me that it's 2006 and all of us are still alive. I mean, we haven't blown up the planet yet. I used to think that December 31st, 1999 would be the last chance we would have to bend over and kiss our asses goodbye. Well, considering the news lately, maybe the last chance is still coming. I mean George Bush has done more than any one person in a thousand years to usher in the Millenium than anyone I can think of. What a retard. I'm so ashamed of him. Everyone I know who expresses an opinion just about chokes on their own vomit when his name comes up. He'll have us all learning Farsi before Spanish, you mark my words.

So where was I? Ah, yes. Getting old. It's a bitch looking 45ish but feeling 75ish. And this brings up the other subject. Leslie in Hawaii (as opposed to the Leslie not in Hawaii) has encouraged me to write a totally anonymous blog where I feel free to just let it all out without having to worry about anything other than letting all my feelings out. It would be therapy. The only problem is I couldn't tell anyone about it because then I'd be too inhibited. The proper way to do it would be to write it, have people find out about it some backasswards way and then everybody can pretend they don't know about it and I can deny it with plausability in case someone is so gauche as to mention it. Ha! That reminds me of Will's family (of "Will and Grace") and how they "handle things."

Enough for now. I've got to go read another blog so my life doesn't seem so bad. It's written by a woman who gives birth about every 6 months, according to my calculations.

The Response

A few days I wrote about a nasty situation at the Chelsea Premium Outlet Mall in Vacaville, CA. For a refresher, please see "Photography is Not a Crime."

Today, taking me by surprise, I actually received a response. Predictably, though, it was unapologetic and actually misrepresented the circumstances by which they were made aware of my violation of their "code of conduct."

Code of conduct? Who are they kidding? Who goes shopping realizing that they are doing so under implied consent of a code of conduct?

Here's the letter:

click on it for a better view or see: http://www.flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=188397227&size=o

Just by coincidence, last weekend we stopped at another one of their fabulous outlet malls in Napa (mostly because we had to pee) and I noticed that the management office was right next to the rest rooms. I noticed a document taped to the window that turned out to be exactly what this letter is referring to. If it was much larger than a standard sheet of paper, it wasn't by much. It's not exactly something that would stop shoppers in their tracks and say, "Gee, I hope I'm acting within the mall's code of conduct!"

It was about 102° outside. I was hot, tired and miserable. I SHOULD have taken a photo of the document because it was fairly thorough. What was most interesting was the first 16 items on the list. It included things like shouting, causing disturbances, doing illegal things and other stuff I can't remember. Number 17 must not be very serious because it was near the bottom of the list.

I had asked Chelsea for the complete list but, obviously, didn't get it. SO I will be FORCED to take a photo of the list the next time we are at one of their FABULOUS malls.

Now just for clarification, the only reason it "came to their attention" that I was at their Vacaville mall taking photos is because I wrote to them and said so. Their employees have no way of knowing who I was.

They may get to know me in the future, however.

Does any of this sound totally ridiculous?

A Burning Black Blob of Black Smoke and Bl, uh, Flames

Traffic is unpredictable at any time and so I've learned to dial 511 to check for driving times and find out what incidents might need to be avoided.

511 is an automated system that calculates driving time between certain points in the SF Bay area using the bridge toll transponders that we keep on our windshields. It's a clever system. Aside from the potential issue of literally being tracked, it allows people to get an up-to-the-minute report on what's happening on the highways.

Yesterday I wasn't surprised to find a slowdown on the 880/980 Northbound interchange in Oakland because the system reported a slowdown there. But I was surprised to find a burning car. You don't see those every day. But I've seen several and they always make me wonder "why."

With my camera at my side and wishing my windshield was cleaner, I put down all the windows, got my camera ready and started taking pictures when I saw that something was burning and putting out a lot of smoke ahead:














And then I realized that I was about to drive right into the smoke with all my windows open. But I didn't think to hold my breath. I just wanted a few good photos.


But in the end, all I really got was my lungs full of black smoke that smelled like burning plastic and rubber and a photo of a ball of flames as I drove by:










I can guess what the causes of car fires are. I've seen some scary ones along the freeways in hot and cold weather. They must be frightening for the people in the car. And cars must not blow up as easily as they do on TV where when one little thing goes wrong and BANG the car blows up. Still, I'm curious about car fires. I'd like to see a documentary on them some day with profiles of the people and their cars.

Easy as Dell and an Icky Thing at a Happy Place

Tonight I was on the phone for a loooooong time with a tech support agent at Dell. He did such a fine job diagnosing and solving my issue(s) that I'm still awestruck by the depth of his knowledge and the massive amount of assistance I got that I didn't even expect. He saved me a lot of money, too, and for that I'm extremely grateful.

Thank you, SHAILEN 01115972, for excellent customer service. You really did make it "Easy as Dell."

The situation at the Vacaville outlet mall kept me awake the other night. Only tonight did I start to feel better after receiving a few comments from other Flickr photographers who commented on my situation. Yes, Gary, I think we should converge on that stupid mall with video camera, tripods, cameraphones, Brownies (the camera; but fudge would be good too), and a KUTV Channel 2 news crew complete with reporter, cameras and a satellite link. Bastards. And no, I haven't heard anything back from management yet. Do you think I will?

At the zoo yesterday (July 4th) I witnessed something kind of icky. It was unexpected and violent. The zoo is supposed to be such a happy place and we forget that in nature animals eat each other all the time. Well, what I witnessed wasn't quite THAT bad but it was a bit shocking. So I've decided to mention it here and include a photo so that you, too, can enjoy life at the zoo.

Everything was lovely late in the afternoon. I was doing some "Primate Patrol" keeping the crowds under control around the chimps and the gibbon and siamangs' islands. Across from them the two pairs of blue and gold macaws were sitting in their shacks grooming each other and playing kissy face all day.

I noticed a squirrel jump into their exhibit and examine some of the stuff the keepers left out for the birds to bite, shred and play with. Then it headed for the inhabited shacks where the food is. There was a very loud shreek, a flurry of activity and the squirrel came running out again but not before suffering a bite to the left foreleg.

So of course I took some photos. Most of them didn't come out right because my settings were wrong but I got one good one of the poor fella just before he returned to the shack for another raid.

You can clearly see the wound.

I feel bad for him/her but to go back and risk it again left me quite astonished. It's leg was obviously useless. And the second time the macaws just let him take their food.

Strange.

Everything's new to me. I reported it to someone later and she said "they do that all the time." Really! I should carry the video camera too for some really entertaining reports.

PHOTOGRAPHY IS NOT A CRIME

You're looking at what I saw as my parting glance after being harassed while trying to take simple, general interest photos at the Chelsea Outlet mall in Vacaville, California yesterday.

I'm way past being sick of people in little golf carts with uniforms and radios bothering me while trying to set up and take innocuous photos of things that in no way relate to any security, commercial license or legality issues. This time I've contacted the management company, asked for their written policy to examine for personal interest reasons and to scrutinize it for legality questions.

What's the big deal about taking photos in true public space and what the general public assumes is public space anyway? So what if you're on the sidewalk and want to take a photo of your friends in front of the Sanrio store or, in my case, are practically laying on the ground to get a unique photo of a fire hydrant?

Yesterday I noticed the color yellow for some reason and decided to devote the day to photographing things that were yellow, challenging myself to find interesting interpretations. Earlier in the day I had captured part of a grate in the sidewalk and later on after lunch (which I should also write about separately) I found this bright yellow hydrant across from the restrooms. There were some yellow flowers in the ground cover around it which I captured but didn't publish. And at the same spot was a bright yellow railing/barrier that looked great in the late afternoon light against the black asphalt pavement.

I missed that photo because that's when the first person stopped me. She said she wasn't "security" but was driving a security vehicle and warned me that security wouldn't like it that I was taking photos. I told her that I'm just an amateur photographer and wasn't breaking any laws but if she felt she had to sound the alarm or call in the troops to go ahead but I wanted to go back to work getting the shot of the paint on the railing.

She drove off, obviously in a huff over being talked back to. But I never got the photo I wanted because it was only a couple of minutes later that the real security person in the big truck (pictured above) stopped to ask me what I was taking pictures of. Feeling like it was none of her business but suspecting that it might be her business, I said "yellow things." She responded snidely, "yellow things?."

And so it went. I told her what I was doing and she did her best to tell me that I was prohibited from taking pictures anywhere on the outlet property and that the policy, though not posted anywhere the public can see including on the website, is posted in the management office. I don't remember what happened or who said what but I know she drove off after I suggested that if they don't want people taking pictures they ought to post some signs where people can see and she should go find her superiors and suggest just that and that I would be doing the same which I have.

Of course all during this intercourse I wanted to take pictures of her but was sufficiently intimated out of doing so. And as she drove off I suppressed my desire to yell something obscene and show off my middle finger, taking a fuzzy photo instead.

Probably 75% of people walking around these days is armed with a camera. They range in size from the Hubble telescope down to something small enough to hang from a keychain. They're in cell phones and tiny personal, portable computer devices. Spys have them in their coat buttons and writing pens. Some look like credit cards and mine just looks like an old-fashioned camera. So what's the big deal? We're being watched everywhere we go and in every thing we do. Our cars are watched on the highways and in parking lots. There are eyes on us on the sidewalks and inside stores. Our phone calls are logged and possibly listened to. Our purchases are tracked both in the stores and online. Next time you buy something and the clerk wants your zip code, take their picture and say "tell your boss it's none of your business."

A group of photographers on flickr.com have formed a group called PhotoMOB(ilization) because of the harassment we get for situations like this all the time it seems. Usually it's from pseudo-police who are overly aggressive and are all puffed up with patriotism and 9/11 paranoia.

I hope to hear back from the property management company and if I do, I'll post more info here. Regardless of what might happen next, I'm unscathed and will continue to exercise my right to take photographs. Photography is not a crime and neither is free speech, fortunately.