First Admendment

I just read about the beauty contestant that tried to give a good answer to a bad question. She did not agree that the Quran should be burned as a right of free speech. Burning books whatever they are seems more like censorship than a right under the First Admendment. I also need to add that the First Admendment is there to give us freedom of speech not to give us the right to stop others from speaking.

I think she gave a very good answer to the question and the judge that was so pleased that she lost just doesn't get what the First Admendment is really all about. I wrote this as a comment.

Free speech is respecting the ideas of others even when we don't agree with them. Burning books is not free speech and while we do not make it a crime to burn the words of others, unless we start a forest fire, burning books is censorship and that has nothing to do with free speech. I never watch beauty pagents...that is just me taking advantage of my constitutional rights.

And if anyone wonders...some censorship is necessory...the best example of this is child porn. The beauty contestant mentioned lines we shouldn't cross. These lines are created by our society and make living together and living with ourselves possible.

Spring Flowers

Another trip to Summer's Past.

 Backlit sunflowers.

This is the dark sunflower backlit by the sun. On the seed package they are called burgundy.

Sunflowers

This year I managed to get sunflowers planted...several different kind. They are so cheerful.

These are black...well with a very dark brown flower face and yellow showing on the back of the petals.

 These were not photographed. I scanned them.

Memory

On the news this morning they were talking about a study on childhood memory. Guess it has been descovered that children remember better if their parents talk about things that happened when they were little. Then the news person said that is not memory but retelling the stories they heard from their parents. I've heard that before. I have memories from when I was very young and I've been told that they were not really memories but things I heard my parents tell and reminded me about. The thing is...parents cannot tell a child what they were thinking or feeling when the memory happened.

My mother mentioned years later when I was about 15 that when I was about three years old I would put big red tomatoes in our freezer. She said she would open the freezer and there was a big red tomato sitting there. Frozen tomatoes turned to mush and she would take it out and throw it away. My mother sold vegtables from our front porch so we often had lots of big red tomatoes. Any way she always wondered why I put them in the freezer. So I told her why. I thought they would turn white like ice cubes. I used to go back and check and they would still be red. Then they would be gone and I would get another one and try again. I never did see a frosty white tomato...

There could be things that I remember only because my mother talked about them but in reality my Mother seldom talked to us children about things that happened in the past until we were in our teens. I remember when she said that she was glad when we got old enough to have conversations with her. Then there were things that I remember that happened when my mother wasn't there. She went to work in an aircraft parts factory when I was still three years old. I know the difference between the things I remember and the stories we heard about our childhood. My father was supposed to stay home and watch my little sister and I but often he would leave us alone. My great grandfather and my great uncle Burt lived accross the road. Mama said later that Grandpa Clark, who was over 90 years old, would sit out side on the porch and watch our house. Mama was still pretty mad about that years later! Uncle Burt would check in on us when he could. One day Uncle Burt came over to find me on top of our electric stove turning on the burners. He got me off the stove before the burners got hot. I totally don't remember that.

When I was about a year and a half years old my Uncle Burt was holding me near our front door and I put my hand in the back of the screen door as it was closing. I can still see the gap in the door. I just reached out and stuck my hand in the gap. I couldn't resist. The screen door closed and pinched my fingers. It hurt and I cried. Uncle Burt said look at the birdy and he pointed toward the yard...to get me to forget about the hurt fingers. This memory is part totally remembering what I was thinking when I put my hand in the door and Uncle Burt telling me about it.

When I was three and my little sister was about a year and a half old, she was kept in a play pen made out of three old crib sides and the wall. Uncle Burt was worried that something would happen and I needed to know how to get my sister out of the play pen. So he showed me how to put one of our little chairs into the play pen and to push the other one up to the outside of of the bars. And he showed my sister how to climb out. So when we were alone my sister wanted me to get her out of the play pen. She would cry until I gave in and got her out. Then we got into even more trouble in the house. One time she pulled all the pots and pans out of the kitchen cuboard. I tried to stop her but she was too much for me. Then I tried to put them back in before my mother saw what we did. I couldn't figure out how to do it. Another time we took all my mother's books out of the bookcase. That was my idea. I thought we could put them on the floor and walk on them like stepping stones. When we tried to step on them the covers would slip and tear so I took them all off. I remember being upset because my sister couldn't walk on the books. Also I found out that books had blank pages in the front. My sister and I drew pictures on these pages with our crayons. I still have couple of the books. I got a good hard spanking for taking down the books.

The worst thing I did was climb that same book case to get the undeveloped film that my mother put at the top. She took our pictures and then took the film out of her camera. We didn't have alot of money so Mama would only take a few photos once in awhile and then when the roll of film was used up she would wait until she could afford to get the film developed. She told us that our pictures were on that roll of film. I wanted to see the pictures. She told us that we would have to wait. I didn't understand. So climbed up and got the box with the rolls of film.  I ruined my sister's baby pictures. I got a really hard spanking that time. I had been so happy that day because I was wearing my favorite skirt. It was blue with red and yellow embordered girls around the hem and I had on patent leather shoes that I also loved. When I outgrew those shoes I had to see my little sister wearing them.

The little chairs were oak and came with a small table. Uncle Burt bought them for us when I was still too young to sit in the chairs. I remember sitting in one of the chairs and my feet didn't touch the floor. I had to climb up to get into the chair. One day my mother was sitting in one chair and me in the other and she was feeding me lunch. She went into the kitchen to get some pudding. I was going to surprise her so I got off my chair and ran to hers. Then I changed my mind and got down and ran back to mine. Then I got down again and ran to get in the other chair. I slipped and fell and cut my upper lip on the corner of the chair seat. I cried a lot. Years later my mother told me about this and wondered what I was doing. She didn't know that I had changed chairs more than once. I also remember feeling bad that I didn't get to eat the pudding.

I wasn't supposed to touch the things in the kitchen. My mother worked swing shift and she was tired. One morning when she was still in bed, I pushed a chair up to the sink and I picked up a butcher knife. I knew I was not supposed to touch it. I cut my thumb on the blade. It hurt but if I cried my mother would know so I stuck my thumb in my mouth and never told her what I did. No one could tell me about this memory.

Second Look

A few more photos from WAP 09. The flight cage where the birds are is a mixture of sun and dark shade. It is hard to get the camera settings just right. The bird photos were taken in both jpg and in raw. The photos were very dark so I overlooked them. At the time was more interested in the butterfly photos. Going back to the dark raw photos I opened them in Photoshop raw converter. Using the sliders I found that I had taken some nice photos. Here are two of them.

Sleeping lions. At a later visit I got some better shots of this big guy.
 

San Diego Wild Animal Park Visit back in 09

Elizabeth, Hailey, Ashleigh, and me went to the park to see the butterflies. I posted these photos in another blog that sadly bit the dust. We stood in line for a long time even though we went on a week day and got there early. The butterflies were wonderful and I would have stayed a lot longer but the girls seen it done it and wanted to go on to something else...teens!

Last year I was recovering from some healt probs...Hopefully I will get to visit the butterflies this year...

Where's the Sun?

After a few beautiful warm sunny days we have slipped back into overcast and cold. Hailey went swimming in our pool three days in a row and thought she would swim through her spring break. Monday the sun was gone. I feel so much more cheerful on sunny days.

I took these the other day when the sun was shinning and the day was springtime beautiful.

Summer's Past with Hailey and Jackie

We had a rainstorm and snow in the mountains on Friday. Saturday was a blustery day. Partial clouds and windy, still we went to Summer's Past in the afternoon. It was cold. We had hot coffee in the patio area...Hailey had hot chocolate. There was a small plant on the table and a butterfly that we thought was fake. I looked at it and it seemed real so we thought it was dead. Then if fluttered it's wings and fell to the table.

While Hailey and Jackie checked out the gift shop I walked around taking photos of the flowers. Spring is a lovely place at Summer's past. Earlier in the day there had been a sweet pea picking for three dollars a bunch. We missed most of the sweet peas.

Painting

Today I signed up for a painting class through the Grossmont Adult School. Classes are held throughout the district...which covers a lot of miles. The painting class is held in the Lakeside Community Center. So I thought it was perfect for me. When I got there I found out that it is a pastel class. Most of the students have taken the class before. They came with supplies...I didn't.

I decided to continue with the class. I do have a set of soft pastels that are years old...Hailey has been using them lately and she has created some very pretty work. I used to paint and take art classes but when Hailey came to live with me I put my art stuff away. She was 18 months old back then and it was not easy to keep her out of stuff or work with a small child needing attention. At the time I was also a resident manager of a mini storage facility. Hailey is seventeen now and I could have gotten back to doing art but just haven't...maybe it is time now.

For today the instructor gave me a piece of Canson paper and let me use her pastels. This is what I created from a photograph she passed out to the students. Scanned the painting on my scanner twice and put the scans together. I know it needs more work. My pastel doesn't look very much like anyone else's.

And Hailey let me have my pastels back. Just kidding...she would never keep my stuff, and she knows she can use them any time.

Spring in Borrego Springs

Borrego Springs is a lovely desert community that is even better when the flowers bloom. My blog readers will know that at least once a spring we like to take the drive over the mountains to the desert. This year I got a photo of a silver puff. There were few desert primroses today. I don't know if that means we misssed them, they will bloom later, or that this year is not a good one for them. Lots of rain did turn the desert floor yellow with flowers and they may have prevented other flowers from blooming.

The camel is the real deal. There is a camel ranch in Ramona and a few of the camels were near the road. So we stopped to take a few photos. You can see our day was foggy and overcast. It even rained on us the way over to the desert.

The sun shinning on Salton Sea. Salton Sea. It is an interesting place to see but it really smells bad when the fish die off. The sea is 30 miles from Borrego Springs. This was taken from Montazuma Road on the way down into the valley.

When ER first came down from Washington State he wanted to see Salton Sea. Guess there had been lots of TV adds promoting the Salton Rivera resort there. I didn't think much of the place. Been there before and thought it was a big smelly place. URF! Anyway on one of our first dates we drove over there. Rented a small motor boat and floated around for a little while. ER saw the resort and the empty dusty streets of the subdivision...only a few miserable looking houses were built on the sandy dessert, and he could understand why I was not impressed by the place. Back then there was a gift shop there and I got a silver charm of an out board motor for my charm bracelet. Still have it.

 Looking back from the valley floor to the edges of the clouds we left behind.

The silver puff. I had been looking through my Sonoran Desert flower book and had seen a photo of this flower just the day before. So really nice to actually see the flower and take my own photo. Yea!

Since I had seen the real thing on the way over, took this though I have photographed this sculpture before.

It is great to see even more of these metal animals. Borrego Springs is turning into a Museum of metal art!

Hailey taking a photo of the ORV sculpture.

Along Montazuma Road on our way back home. There were more of these yellow flowers here than I've ever seen before.

Ocotillo close up.

On the way home we stopped in Santa Ysabel and had the lovely breakfast buffet. Hailey just sat and read while we ate the great food. Then we bought her Jack in the Box in Ramona on the way home. Teenagers!