Making Choices

My family grew up and left home. I managed and lived at a mini storage. A few years before that my husband and I broke up and he moved away. So I was often alone at the storage...sometimes one of my children would move back for awhile...

Then Hailey came to live with me. She was about 18 months old. Before she came to live with me I used to enjoy a glass of wine or two but quit. I was Hailey's sole caretaker and I needed to have my wits about me. If I had to drive us somewhere I sure didn't want to have any alcohol on board.

My mother's uncle...my Great Uncle Burt was an alcoholic. He went for several years not drinking but when he did fall off the wagon he would not drive. Many times he walked over five miles to get home. Then when he sobered up he would get someone to take him to where ever he left his truck. After I learned to drive I took hum to get his truck a couple of times.

Now we read in the news about two moms that caused deaths by drinking and driving. They have killed their own children. No matter how drunk a person is they can make the choice to drive or not. They can choose to not drink if they need to stay sober to protect the lives of others and themselves. So many families have been touched by drunk drivers. My own cousin was killed by a drunk driver that ran a red light and slammed into the driver's side of my cousin's car.

When I think about drunk drivers I remember my Uncle Burt walking home all those miles because no matter how drunk he was he was not going to kill someone by driving drunk.

Almost Full Moon

Balboa Park on Sunday

To get a parking place I came early and waited for my photo class to start. Went over to the rose garden and enjoyed the roses...took some photos to make up for not being in class last week. This one was on the way to the overpass...just waiting for me to see the opportunity.

Took several rose photos but when I was ready to leave saw this and a nice reflection across the street. Tried this several times and like this one best.

Looking for a round punch...

Here too...this looks so fake but I swear it is just like it came from the camera except for downsizing the file.

At the Alcazar Garden waiting to get started...snuck off and took some photos...

Three tiers...

Close as I got to the umbrellas at the Organ Pavilion. It is a beautiful location but from this photo doesn't look like it.

Dorothy

Stromy

Pretty doesn't make it art...

My mother was an artist...not a pro or anything. She painted off and on for years and just when she was getting really good she died. Something a few days ago reminded me of a time we spent together at one of those bulk art sales and so I was inspired to write.

Pretty doesn't make it art. Often we look at a pretty bright oil painting that looks well done. It might be a sunset or an old building overgrown with flowers or a beautiful landscape or sea scape and think how wonderful that is. The artist knows how to paint a pretty scene. And does it over and over until they can paint that scene without even thinking about it. You can look through stacks of these paintings at the "original" oil painting sales, and see the minor differences...sometimes there is a slight change in color tone. I remember when my mother and I, back in the early 1970s, looked through one of those "original" art sales. There were hundreds of paintings many the same scenes over and over. She called it quickie art. Hotels and Motels bought this stuff in bulk.

I saw some of this quickie art out in front of Wal Mart today, and I could see that it was pretty. I remembered Mama and that day so long ago, and I smiled. I think it is fine if someone likes one of these paintings and enjoys seeing it on the wall. Is it art? How can it be art when it is meaningless, emotionless, rote?

We can fall into this trap when we take photo after photo of pretty scenes just as every other person with a camera has already done before us. I like taking pretty pictures but that doesn't mean that I want to stay in that rut for the rest of my life and not stretch myself and learn to do more with my camera.

Digital photography is a whole new world. Taking photos for me in the past was about recording my growing family and the things we did and the places we went. That is important for me...not that the world cares a bit. We don't want to see someone else's family sitting around the table at Thanksgiving. We do want to look at those old photos of our own families. So I would never say that recording is not what photography is about, or that it isn't important. It just isn't art.

With our digital cameras we can do things we couldn't do before. Not because it was not possible, but because we were limited. We had 24 or 36 pictures on our roll of film and because we were not pros had to pay for printing. Polaroid excepted, we couldn't take a photo and then quickly see what we had done. We didn't want to make mistakes. With our digital cameras we can make mistakes until we learn. We can try new things and if they work, fine...if not we can try something else. We can spin the camera, move it to catch an impression of our subject, or change the aperture and shutter speed to catch effects we would not get with "normal" settings. We can create art. We can have fun with our cameras.

Pool

After lots of work and a couple of months the pool was finally ready for water. A little last minute sweeping and the water was turned on. Three hoses ran for several hours. We all guessed when the pool would be full. I said 4am...I was right on. While the water was running into the pool the kids did some sliding.

This shows the deep end of the pool finally getting enough water to swim a little.

I haven't been in yet!

Water!

We don't have enough water in Southern California. Now the water districts have demanded that we cut back ten percent of our past use for the same month last year. We will pay a higher rate for the water we use over our limit.

Building is still going on...new houses and apartments or condos...and where is the water coming from to support all these new homes? Is it from the ten percent we must give up? Or does it even exisit? We had a well when I was growing up in Lakeside. I was a grown woman before there was city water down our road. If it were not for city water that area would still be farm land and dairies with a few scattered houses. Now it is wall to wall houses up one side of the road and down the other. It breaks my heart to see it. I'm glad I don't live there anymore.

I lived in five different houses on that road from the time I was a baby until we left when my children were still in grade school. They say you can't go home again and it is true even when you only move a few miles away.

Lilies and Light

Last night I went outside with my camera and a little led flashlight that I bought from Office Depot...less than $4. I took photos of my agapanthus by using a slow shutter and shining the light on the lilies. This was mostly an experiment, but I got a few photos that I liked.

This morning I was out at dawn to photograph these lilies.

For this one I changed the aperture to f22 and the shutter speed to 1/20 of a second. That darkened the background and softened the sunlight.

Lindo Park

For much of my growing up in Lakeside the lake was dry. There was a lovely boat house with a bridge across to dry land on each side of it. I remember running across that bridge when there was still a little brackish water left in the lake. I was about six or seven so that was in the late 1940s. The boats had long gone. After the lake was dry someone got the idea to scrape the bottom of the lake. Unfortunatly that removed the silt that had worked as a liner keeping what water was left from sinking into the sandy soil. It also was the end of the boat house as it had been. The top was moved and made into a sort of gazebo. For many years water was pumped from a well and that kept a small area near the road wet and full of tulies. We had a very wet winter in about 1952 but even that wasn't enough to bring back the lake. The east half of the lake was made into a Little League field and a raised road way separated the lake in two.

About 1978 we began to have several wet years in a row. It seemed to happen so fast. One day I remember watching the television news show cracked silt in the bottom of some reservoir and then a few weeks later it was raining cats and dogs...We lived in Ramona at the time and I was working down in Escondido. The road between Ramona and Escondido washed out at a bridge not that far from the Wild Animal Park. I had to drive to I-15 and through Poway to get home. The rain poured down so hard I could barely see the road. I was late getting home. After I came up the grade on Poway road it was stop and start traffic. When I got near Mt. Woodson a wrecker was bringing a car up to the road from over the cliff. Then on the way into Ramona the road was flooded over and several cars had overturned. I drove slowly and got through. When I walked in the door at home my hands were shaking and E.R. upset that I was so late started yelling at me.

Lindo Lake filled with water. The houses at the east end of the lake flooded. People got upset. Some water was eventually released from the lake to the San Diego River but not enough to clear the Little League field. Some people wanted the field brought back and others wanted to keep the lake. The Little League field is long gone. The lake had been dry for about thirty years and now the water has been back thirty years or more. People forget.

The park is a beautiful place. Glenda and I met at the REC center. Then drove around the lake and down into the park. Saw lots of geese. Though there seems to be fewer other birds than I've seen there before. Last winter some idiot person with the county decided to drain the lake down. The water is back up but not as far as it should be.



We took photos and had an enjoyable time. We drove over to the far side of the lake and parked where we had a good view of the lake. The boat house was moved back to a spot in the lake where it might have been originally. There is a built up island for it and a dirt walkway to it. Not ever the same as it was though. That didn't make some people happy either as it was a nice place to sit out of the sun where it had been for so many years. I took this photo of the boathouse a few years ago.



Glenda is a lovely person and in no time we had spent an hour and a half. Time to leave, but looking forward to more photo outings.


This is a painted with a camera version of the same leaves.

Neighborhood Watch

The helicopter flew around and a loudspeaker asked someone named Michael to surrender. It sounded serious but we went on doing what we were doing. Elizabeth and Dennis drove down the hill and Elizabeth called me and said that Valle Vista was blocked off at the fire station and that there was an officer down at the mail boxes. Elizabeth heard that the sheriffs were looking for someone that took off out of a house and they were after him. So we locked up. Ashley came over here too.

A couple of months ago I went to the Eucalyptus Hills Home Owners meeting. Good place to learn what is happening, but while there I found an even better place to find out...The Neighborhood Watch email list. I signed up.

I finally managed to get my computer started up. It is sometimes tempermental...wonder if that is because of the cat sleeping on top of it...and I read the emails from the neighborhood watch. Seems that it was a domestic violence situation. The girlfriend is the one that escaped from the house and that they were bringing in the swat team. Sounds about right as the helicopter was gone about the time the emails were sent...Anyway all is quiet now.