Orange Tree

We have a small orange tree that has the most amazing oranges this winter.

What Can We Do?

After the tragedy in Tucson there is again going to be lots of talk about the mentally ill and what to do about someone that seems dangerous or maybe a little off balance. Years ago our laws changed. We cannot lock up the mentally ill if they don't want to be locked up. We cannot make them take meds if they do not want to take meds! I have written some about my son with schizophrenia. Living with someone with schizophrenia day to day can be very stressful. Some days he seems just like everyone else. Then there are days he rants and raves through the house about being poisoned...the air is poison...the food is poison... Not fun. When someone is mentally ill like my son they can seem so normal. They can have rational conversations. Yet we need to watch what we say. They can take something said out of context. It is easy to forget and we must not ever forget that we are talking to someone that has a brain that doesn't think the way we do.

As parents we raise a child we love. They are cute and lively and wonderful. The care about animals. They do well in school. They have friends. Then sometime in their late teens that slowly changes. They become someone else. We still love them and we don't know what to do. My son went to counseling and took meds. That doesn't last. So as his mother I sort of became his counselor. I listen to him and when his ideas get too strange I tell him no. That is not how it is. I have always told him that he does not have the right to hurt anyone else. He has to try to understand that most people out in the world are doing their own thing and are not concerned with giving him poison or in any way harming his life. It is a never ending process. I feel like I walk a thin line. My son is basically a kind person. I am not saying that what I do would work with every child that becomes schizophrenic. Still listening and talking does help.

I have no idea what there is for parents when they know the child they raised and loved becomes mentally ill and seemingly dangerous. Dangerous is hard to prove. There are no facilities for the dangerously mentally ill. As a society we have to wait until they commit a serious crime...like killing people...and then send them to prison.

If as a society we give the parents of the mentally ill no help, no way to get their child help, how can we point fingers at them? How can we say they didn't do something. Like what?

Our San Diego news paper did a story about a homeless young woman that was found dead in a park here. They interviewed her stepmother in another state. When the girl's father was alive he would find a hospital for her when her illness got out of control. This happened over and over and cost the father a lot of money. The stepmother resented the girl and felt that the girl could stop being a problem if she wanted to. The father died and the stepmother blamed the girl for breaking her father's heart. No more hospitals or help and the girl was truly homeless and it isn't safe for women on the street. She met up with the wrong person and was raped and murdered.

The mentally ill have committed crimes and when caught are sent to prison. Still I truly believe that when the mentally ill have no family to help them or provide a home for them they are much more likely to become victims of crime. It is a burden I would never wish on another family.

Painted Sky

We woke to another pretty sunrise this morning. So it was out in the cold with camera. My big black cat Tuffy followed me with his loud meow! Was I being scolded for being out in the cold or did he just want attention...whatever...I just kept shooting.

I took these in raw with my Oly E-3 and my 50-200mm lens. Most of the photos I post are jpg images to start with. These photos looked better in the raw versions and without any editing. I find that the PSP raw converter works great. My camera is always set to take both jpg and raw. I like that I have a choice of which format to use.

The Shooting in Tucson

It is a tragedy that took the life of a young girl as well as killing others and leaving a wonderful woman with brain damage. Hopefully she will live. Hopefully the brain damage will not be such that she cannot live a full and useful life. The full tragedy of this seems to be an attack on free speech. I know that there is a fine line between our right to free speech and causing someone to pick up a gun and kill. Free speech does not create the mentally ill person. Our care facilities for the mentally ill are basically non existant. That is another story.

We cannot live our lives in this country watching every thing we say. We have the right to our political opinions, and the right to express them. Once we curb what can be said in the political arena we will lose our all our freedom, and rights that our countries founders gave to us. We need the right to tell our elected officials what we think.

I am not a tea party fan. I am not a Sarah fan. The tea party is not at fault for what someone with mental illness does. Is Sarah at fault? I don't know. Sarah or her people used poor judgement in choosing to put out a map using gun sight images over congressional districts. One of those districts belonged to  Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona.

I do not think that anyone should encite others to violence. I totally wish the world was different or that  some people it this world would change and stop trying to use violence to accomplish something. That is not to say that people should not stand up for what is right. We need our police. In the world we live in we need our military. But we also need to learn that war doesn't always make things better.

Mark Twain

Mark Twain wrote what he wrote it the times he lived. We did not read Huck Finn in school. I don't think it was banned all those years ago in California...but it might have been. We were taught at home and at school not to ever use the "N" word. We were to say negro and to also never say black. Later black became acceptable. Never the "N" word. So I never actually read Huck Finn or for that matter Tom Sawyer.

Now a publisher is planning to remove the "N" word from the book. When I read about Huck Finn it does seem that the "N' word is used in the name of a character of the book so that is probably why it is used so much in the text. Oh well. If it makes a whole group of people feel better about the book what is the harm? There will always be the original text available. By removing the "N" word it could open up the book for school children to enjoy the story. And if Mark Twain were writing today I think he would have used another name for the character.

Oops! I have learned that the character was not named with the "N" word...but the word was used to describe him. So I got a bit confused. Now I am sure that if Mark Twain were writing today he would not use the "N" word...

Letting others know what I think leaves me open to other opinions. That is good in a free society where we can express our thoughts and beliefs.

Cold Sunrise

My fingers were frozen...well they felt that way. The sunrise was so pretty that I was out in the cold taking photos.

 And another pretty sunrise got me out in the cold again!

A Cross

The cross on top of Mt. Helix in La Mesa caught my imagination as a child riding in the car with my family. I loved seeing the white cross against the sky. Some years ago it was challenged because it was on public land. The cross was built as a memorial to the mother of the man who eventually donated the land for a park. A small section containing the cross was sold to a private group to maintain the cross after it was targeted by an athiest group on the church and state issue. The same group made the La Mesa Police  change the emblem on their uniforms because it contained a replica of Mt. Helix and the cross.

The cross on Mt. Soledad was built in 1954 for a Korean War memorial. This cross was also targeted by someone that wanted to see it torn down. Now The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the Mt. Soledad cross is unconstitutional. Personally I always thought the cross looked like concrete blocks stuck together. Anyway it means a lot to many people and I can see no real reason why it shouldn't stay right where it is.

I posted this on Facebook and am posting it here. It is what I think:

People have lost sight as to what the intent of the constitution meant on religion. It wasn't to ban Christian crosses on public property. It was about letting all versions of the Christian religion have the freedom to practice as they wished. In other words the state would not favor one church over another. This was expanded to give freedom of religion to other beliefs. It never meant that the government had to ban religion in any way from government or government property. Our courts are rewriting history in a stupid and careless way.

Remember when the Muslim Taliban blew up the Buddist statues? Is that what we want here? I am not a Buddist by any means but hearing about this happening was hurtful to me.

Happy New Year

I've had some computer problems. First my big computer stopped working and then my laptop. So now I have a new computer. I haven't loaded up all my software yet. I do have a new PSP and can download my photos. These are motion photos of my scruffy bird of paradise. I reduced the apeture size and lowered the shutter speed and then moved the camera as I depressed the shutter. This is fun and the effects can come out quite beautiful.

Thanksgiving

My mother made great Thanksgiving dinners. Once we had too many visitors for our little house and we had wooden boards placed on sawhorses for our table and a bed sheet for the table cloth. The weather was beautiful and sunny and perfect for an outdoor meal. My Dad and Marlise were there and two of Mama's friends from Washington state down for a visit. Both men from Washington, were a little bit in love with my mother. Mama wasn't married to anyone at the time. We had my Mama's friend Violet at dinner too. Her husband was away in the Navy.

I remember another Thanksgiving when my children were young and we lived next door to Mama and my last Stepfather. We called him Shorty. His name was Lee Roy Castleman. It was an easy walk to grandmother's house. Uncle Burt...Mama's uncle lived in her little house accross the driveway. My sister and her husband the their two sons were there and someone opened up a bottle of Cold Duck. Do they still have that? My sister's oldest son said, "Cold Duck and hot turkey." Everyone laughed and we remembered that through the years. I mentioned that today and my son David said he remembered when Jimmy said it all those years ago.

Back then I was living my life and not thinking that I was making memories. Sometimes I look back on all that has happened and I feel sad and a sense of loss. Things could have been a lot better. Mama could have lived to be 90 instead of dying at 57. We could have kept our house and not moved to Wyoming. E.R. had left me a couple of months before Mama died, and he got a job in Wyoming. I couldn't pay the bills. With Mama gone I didn't want to live next door anymore. So I agreed to go to Wyoming. We only stayed the summer and came back to Lakeside.

My Uncle Burt went into a home and so we moved into my mother's little house. The same one we lived in when we had too many people for Thanksgiving dinner years before. E.R. went back to Wyoming to work. One evening Shorty came over from Mama's house and told me that I was responsible for my mother dying. He said I had caused her to die. I was so upset I called E.R. and asked him to come back. We stayed  a little over a year and I went to beauty school. Then we moved to Ramona. I did like it in Ramona but then we only stayed two years. My Dad needed someone to manage the storage and so I took the job. My husband didn't want to do it. I said I was going with or without him. I had applied for a job at the Country Estates and finally was hired but it was too late. I was commited to move to the storage. Our marriage broke up three years later for the last time. We take care of David and Hailey and have a sort of friendship...Life can be so sad.

My first Thanksgiving alone was just me at the storage and some wine and very quiet. My kids were with their father. People invited me to dinner. My Dad and Marlise, my friend Janey, and my sister, all invited me...but I needed to be alone.

I was never totally alone at the storage after E.R. left.  My kids came and went. My father passed away two years later and I got to be friends with Marlise. Marlise and I began to spend time together and we had some good times. I think when my Dad was gone she didn't feel stressed with me because my Dad cared about me. I felt such a sense of loss when Marlise was gone. We were friends. I think it never gets easier. I cried so much at Mama's funeral and then we lost Uncle Burt and then my Dad. And during those years my Aunt and Uncle and my cousins and then Marlise's mom...who was the only grandmother I knew.

E.R. lived up in Ramona and then in an apartment in Lakeside and stopped drinking. Marlise let him rent the little house from her. She felt better with someone else on the place. Her mother came to live with her too. Then E.R. and I found out what was wrong with David. That brought us some bad times. It also meant that whatever we did we would never really separate and go our own ways...someone has to be there for David.

Then Hailey came. Marlise loved Hailey. We used to take her to lunch when she was just a toddler, Hailey and I had it good at the storage just the two of us. Marlise has been gone ten years now, and I live in her house with Hailey. I'm not as good at making Thanksgiving as my Mama was. But then when I was younger I did some pretty good dinners too. Even with the years gone I still hear the laughter from Thanksgivings past and the good times we had. So this is dedicated to my mother Lillian Elizabeth Ulery, my great Uncle Burt Byron Clark, My father Alfred Julian Toston, and my wonderful stepmom Marlise Dumser Toston.

Dawn and Cold Feet!

Up early again this morning. I decided to wait for sunrise outside but I got a little too cold for that. I came in and looked up sunrise on the computer. Computers and the net are wonderful!

So was back out with my camera just before the sun came up. The full moon was still in the sky in the west. This is the only photo I cropped. All were taken in raw and not edited.

Hide and seek.

We are surrounded by hills on three sides of our property. There are many new or newer homes on the hills around us. Some of them are pretty expensive. I love telling people that I live in Eucalyptus Hills. They don't have to know that our house is not much better than an old shack! We like it.

Someone's House

 Sunrise

The temptation is to keep shooting, but I'm not sure what the bright sun will do to my digital camera.