When I was a child I spoke with a lisp. I spoke early and often … to the pigs in their pens, the guard dogs on leases, the chickens running free and sometimes to the elderly aunties shelling peas in their gardens.
Judith Mehr from Bing Images
Much to my parent’s mortification.
They didn’t have a lot of money but they couldn’t abide raising a chatterbox with a lisp in the time of perfect children. And so … at enormous expense … I was sent to a Speech Tutor. The poor man is a blur to me now but his influence over the way I speak and write is unmistakable. You see he was a proper Brit. And so … needless to say, I stuff my speech with useless phrases like “needless to say” and I have a tendency to say “rather” rather often. (Not that all Brits are fond of pleonasm but he was from a different generation than even my parents).
And don’t get me started on my tendency to alliterate. But what can you expect from a person forced to recite: “Peter Piper” over and over again:
I need to join the gang of Fixed Fairy Tales!
Many editors feel that all unnecessary phrases and words should be eliminated but I like “burning fire” and “dark of night.” And you have to admit (or you don’t) that “I saw with my own eyes” is a lot stronger than “I saw.”
Thanks to all of you who sent your love following the death of my nephew. It’s been a hard couple of weeks for many reasons but I’m finally feeling something other than complete exhaustion. Yes, “complete” is unnecessary but fits the bill.
These buildings were transported from abandoned ranches in the Washoe Valley (between Reno and Carson City Nevada) and set on a bleak lot belonging to Bartley Regional Park. In the midday sun of a hot day, they looked especially bleak.
Residents of the area have added their own rusty relics from that time.
The one modern building.
A picnic area behind the Interpretive Center. In a couple of hours this area would be full of hundreds of people celebrating the life of my nephew who died too young.
Here in California there are two main routes to get from the northern part of state to the southern tip. There’s the straight and boring Interstate 5 which is generally filled with semis and cars driving much too fast and there’s the 101 that meanders through the Salinas Valley and then along the coast. The coastal route is, of course, the slower way to go but we generally make it a two day drive. Stop along the coast and then hit LA midday to avoid the traffic.
However this has been an amazing year for the Central Valley. There has been so much snow in the Southern Sierra and rain in the valley that a lake not seen for decades has reappeared.
According to this map of the wetlands we may be driving through Goose Lake!
The artist Wayne Thiebaud painted many pictures of the Central Valley.
Wayne Thiebaud
I must admit that I’ve never seen that much color in the valley but we’ll see. Generally the only thing that breaks the monotony of mile after mile of flat, dry farmland is the feed lot at Harris Ranch. Cows in holding pens waiting for the slaughterhouse. Thousands of cows mooing pathetically. Ugh.
And then there’s the 405 across LA. There are parts of Los Angeles that are beautiful. Perhaps even heavenly but this is generally the view you get. For two hours on a good day.
The 405 on a good day. At least we’re moving!
Anyway – I’m hoping to see what Thiebaud saw on our drive tomorrow but we’ll see!
On a very sad note, my neighbor’s perfect pooch, the incomparable Gaston is gone. He will be missed. Adieu Gaston.
I haven’t much to say today because I’ve been busy cloud dancing, at least in my mind. To me, it’s far healthier than watching the news.
What do you see? Looks like a trio of seahorses to me.
This year Winter rarely took a break to give us a peak at Spring. Selfish old Winter just held on and on and I’m glad that he did. Here in California we needed the water and we needed the cool temps to stay around and slow the thaw of all that snow in the mountains.
Some afternoons there are a thousand things I should be doing but the clouds are so bewitching that often the tasks of the day must line up and wait.
Far above the Smoke Bushes they dance. I thought these plants had died during the drought but it looks like they’re mounting a second coming.
The sun whispers to the clouds from behind the great pines. What do you suppose Ole Sol is saying?
I suppose Miss Summer will arrive by and by. Probably in September. Until then I must remember not to stare up at the clouds.
My cousin has lived his entire life in a tiny town in Massachusetts. He’d only been out of that state a few times before he came to visit us in California. At the time (a dozen years ago) I enjoyed giving folks tours of San Francisco. The first day, we would drive over Bay Bridge, have tea at the Japanese Tea Gardens, lunch at the Cliff House and then drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to end the day in Sausalito.
San Francisco from the Marin Headlands – always a popular stop even on a slightly hazy day.
On the second day we would take the BART to the Powell Street station and grab a trolley over the steep hills to Fisherman’s Wharf.
Looking the other direction
On the second day of my cousin’s visit he confessed that he really wanted to see the Haight Ashbury district instead of Fisherman’s Wharf. I could have told him that area’s not what it was back in the hippie days of yore but I figured he probably just wanted to tell his buddies back home that he’d been there.
We had to take a city bus that passed through many iconic SF neighborhoods all filled with people going about their business on a sunny day. After several blocks, my cousin turned to me and asked “Where are all the gays?” I guess he thought that there were no straight people left in San Francisco and that gay men dressed like this every day.
Everyday scene in San Francisco
He certainly didn’t mean it in any way negative. If there’s one person on earth who doesn’t judge others, it’s my cousin. He’s spent too much of his life branded as hopeless to ever judge another human being. He’d just gotten the idea from the media that San Francisco was a human zoo filled with zoned-out hippies and flaming drag queens roaming the streets for the amusement of out of town visitors. Instead he saw businessmen in suits and families out and about. Even a straight couple here and there holding hands.
I can understand my cousin’s misconceptions but I can’t understand politicians who should know better promoting the conspiracy theory that drag queens are out to indoctrinate the children of America. Drag queens have been around for a long long time and except for the most radical right wing evangelicals, politicians haven’t put them in jeopardy for the sake of sound bite on Fox News. Until now.
From Bay Area Reporter
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were recently uninvited from an award ceremony meant to honor their charitable work. The reason? Influential people complained that they mocked the Catholic Church. Really? Sister Anita Blowjob and Sister Gladass? Nooo. Say it ain’t so. Here’s the thing, this group was founded in 1979 at a time when the Catholic Church shunned gays and people with AIDS. They were all going to hell. I volunteered for Make-a-Wish around that time and have seen first hand how the parents of children with AIDS … through no fault of their own … were treated by churches and communities. So sign me up Sister Irma Geddon and Sister Gard N O’Pansies. I’ll be Sister Know P’nis but Who Cares.
By the way, groups of Catholic nuns familiar with the work of the Sisters spoke up and now they will get their reward and an apology from the pansy asses who uninvited them.
There is no truer truth than “growing old is not for sissies” and I am a sissy. However I have not been given the sissy’s way out which I guess is either death or complete dementia and so, with a solid “ugh,” over the weekend I accepted a new set of numbers. This set of numbers, my friend tells me, when added together is 10 or 1 which in numerology means a new beginning. Double ugh. I’m too old for new beginnings. Can’t all my old beginnings join together for a beautiful ending? However, over the long weekend I found myself drawn to a blank canvas sitting in the hall.
An artist with a blank canvas is like an addict craving drugs
For most of my life I’ve balanced my spare time equally between art and writing. And then ten years ago I decided to focus primarily on the writing. I had some nutty idea that I could write a best seller! HA!! And so for the last decade I have only gotten down to my studio when the weather was too nice to stay inside. Once there I would throw some paint on a canvas and make a mess. Really a mess. I won’t show you some of my messes because I’m too embarrassed (given the amount of time I spent in art school).
I’ve always been partial to this photo my father took when I was probably four years old. He had a real eye. But to do it justice I decided to discipline myself. Yes, discipline. Believe it or not, most artists – even those far out artists – have to discipline themselves.
First I drew the image on graph paper and outlined the form. It needs a few adjustments but those I hope can be made during the painting process. Then I transferred the rough shape onto the canvas.
Whoops – the baby is too big. My brother was a chunkster but not that chunky. But I think it’s close enough for a start. Now to the hard part for me: the pallet. I am not good with colors and so I decided to open the original image in Photoshop and do my experimenting there.
First I decided to cut the figures from the picture and place them against different backgrounds.
I made eight “layers” to experiment with. This is all eight layers combined. I kind of like it. What do you think? Sigh, I’ll probably get so involved in Photoshop antics that I’ll never get to the actual painting. Oh Lord, stuck in new beginnings again.
On a recent walk through the park near my house I was pleased to note that the Starlight Players are preparing for their Summer Season. Although it is an outdoor only event, the last couple of years can’t have been easy for this group. If it wasn’t the pandemic, it was the smoke from all those fires.
Who knows where this door will lead? To Mrs. White’s kitchen where she’s busy spiking Colonel Mustard’s tea with arsenic? Or perhaps the boudoir of the sexy but devilish Deanna Del Doorbell, Duchess of Dimwoodie?
What about this one? Perhaps it will a window through which the audience can glimpse the sloops of the Alps as passengers on a disabled train plot revenge on an evil baby killer. We’ll just have to wait and see!
Below are stage doors in progress from 2016, arguably the last decent summer for outdoor theater we’ve had. The play they eventually put on was Death on the Nile. I saw it with my buddy Jude and we ate popcorn and had a blast.
This image is from Bing Images – the players respectfully ask the audience not to film their productions and I complied.
To see other doors from around the world check out Dan Anton’s place.
I have to admit that I’ve been depressed lately. Nothing personal. Just the general state of the world. So when a lovely lady I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for many years posted this video of the students at her middle school (I believe she is the vice principal), my hope level went through the roof.
I hope these kids know how lucky they are! My junior high school days were more like prison. Enjoy! And I dare you not to smile.
Flowers, candy and breakfast in bed … well, they’re all very well and good but I prefer a handmade card! Believe it or not, the artist of the above card is only twelve years old! Miss Audrey Gould, artist, actress, dancer, and just about anything she sets her mind to be.
This is a bittersweet day for those of us who’ve lost mothers over the past few years. Whether or not you were close to your mother, it’s like losing an anchor.
Saying nothing in particular 