Maily and  Hajime

Jerral and Margaret

Life is Good!

RED CURB

 GERANIUM

I like this geranium image almost as much as I like the driftwood...

REVELATION:  TODAY DURING AN APPOINTMENT WITH DR. RANDALL HAWKINS, the neurologist,  I saw actual pictures of my brain... and pictures of my skeleton from the lower neck to the top of my head without flesh on it...  Amazing... looking at those images is actually not that different from looking at the pictures I get of eucalyptus trees... something to think about...

TOM IN THE MIDDLE OF HIS MURAL

THE EPIPHYLLUM BLOOMS FOR ABOUT A MONTH...

then shuts down for the entire year. Each spectacular blossom lasts for about five days then drops away. Last year there were as may as fifteen blossoms. This year there will be ten. The first one opened on May 12. It was my BLOG picture for that day. I couldn't resist shooting the one that opened today.

SOME DAYS... like this piece of driftwood, just hang around.  I like this driftwood.  I remember the day I found it and hung it to dangle in the breeze, mainly because I couldn't think of anything else to do with it.  I like it as much today as I liked it the day I found it... still haven't figured out what to do with it.  Some things, and some days, are like that.

NANCY, MARGARET, DAVID...  and COOKIE.  No feral pup is this creature.  He knows he's a member of the family.

I know a cat who lives between two buildings in my condominium community.  I also know that a feral cat is one that has returned to the wild after it has been domesticated; so I confess that I don’t know if this cat that hangs around our neighborhood is feral or not.  I don’t know if it has been lost or abandoned and is merely a stray cat.  It is my understanding that feral cats have never been socialized.  That almost fits the description of the cat that I know… the one that lives close to a couple of the buildings in my community.

The thing that perplexes me is that this cat never lets me get close to it.  I have tried to walk up quietly to where it seems to be sleeping; and just as I get within six feet of where it lies, it looks at me and moves away… usually far away.  

FAMILY:  The Davids and Nancy at George's in La Jolla

ABSTRACTION:  There is more to this small space of surviving plant growing at the edge of our condominium community than meets the eye.  This piece of the plant looks as if it has given up the ghost and is ready to let go of whatever hold it has had on living.  Just a few inches away from this "dead" section the plant has started a new, bold revival of interest in living.  This old section is worth a second inspection.  I'll come back to the new part of the plant in a few days, but first I'll take a closer look at this old part.  We may get a bit of rain tonight.

BIRD OF PARADISE...  What was once the most beautiful thing in this part of the garden.

ONE MORE FLOWER PICTURE...  the easiest image to get.  I especially like the half-open blossom at the top right.  

ED AND GRAND DAUGHTER...  Ali Baba Restaurant in El Cajon

EVERY BIT OF COLOR IS IN THE RIGHT PLACE...  I like choosing one image from among several....something about setting others aside.... about saying the one chosen is at least a bit more special than the others.  There is a progression in the image today, from the one on the bottom right that is just beginning to be aware of light all the way up to the one that has opened wider a bit than the one to the right.  I'll check back tomorrow to see if the one that is open wide will be open even more after another day of light.  Life is good.

GREEN...  There is nothing more alive, more affirmative, more yes than green...

FINALLY... A BARK PICTURE...  Whatever you want it to be, it can be.  No explanations needed. This, of course, is a eucalyptus tree in my back yard; so it's at the height of the peel and replenish season.  Every living thing on earth should have a season to make itself over into something else.

GIFT OF BREAD:  Very few things in life compare with the gift of bread, whether or not the bread is needed for nourishment.  Something basic, something elemental, something symbolic is contained in it.  The shape of the loaf isn't important.  

A new bakery has opened for business near my house.  I haven't seen the store.  I've only seen and smelled the warm loaf.  For now that is enough.  

FLOWER POWER... I received a grand bouquet of flowers from the Museum of Photographic Arts staff... and other flowers from friends.  Wow!  The usual signs of stroke are paralysis or some other long lasting muscle affliction; but nothing like that for me.  I have double vision which may or may not go away without a little help.  The main thing that happened today in my life is that things got better, not worse.  I expect tomorrow's report from the eye doctor to be good.  No complaints from my corner.  For awhile I am going to limit my BLOG post to a short note and one photograph.

Epiphyllum... This blossom is shining brightly on one of my

backyard plants.  It is appropriate that this is the first BLOG

post that I have done since I was personally knocked off my

stride by a minor stroke.  Double vision seems to be the only 

symptom left hanging on since I started into the dark tunnel 

last week.  I've managed to take a picture ever day except

Monday and Tuesday.  I'll post those tomorrow or the next

day.  Life is good.

No sermon in church today...

A group of talented young people

performed a musical representation of

the Feeding of the Five Thousand, 

a story about sharing.

In the afternoon I went for another long bike ride.

As I rode around Mission Bay to Pacific Beach and Mission Beach

and then along the river to get back home again 

I thought about how different life is for these young people

from the experience of thousands of kids growing up in conditions of abject poverty.

contempt: noun

the feeling that a person or a thing is beneath consideration, worthless, or deserving scorn.

indignation: noun

strong displeasure at something considered unjust, offensive, insulting, or base; righteous anger

One of my personal failings is that I’ve reached “elder age” without having learned to tamp down the impulse to shoot from the hip, to respond to provocation, challenge or dilemma with the first thing that comes into my head, to rush to judgement and then consider questions later. Last week I was transfixed by the Television news coverage of the rampage and rampant destruction of property in Baltimore after Freddie Gray died in police custody.  I have learned that since Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, more than a dozen other young people have been killed by police officers: Trayvon Martin in Florida, Tamir Rice in Ohio, Cameron Tillman in Louisiana, VonDerrit Myers Jr in Missouri, Laquan McDonald in Illinois, Carey Smith-Viramontes in California, Jeffrey Holden in Missouri, Jeffrey Holden in Ohio, Jeffrey Holden in Georgia, Dillon McGee in Tennessee, Levi Weaver in Georgia, Karen Cifuentes in Oklahoma, Sergio Ramos in Texas, Roshad McIntosh in Illinois, Diana Showman in California, Michael Brown in Missouri. What’s going on?  Why?

Focus is now on the six police officers who took Freddie Gray into custody.  We’ve all heard/read details of his being handcuffed and shackled… left face down on the floor of the police van, not secured by anything to keep him from being tossed around in the three-quarters of an hour ride before he was discovered to have sustained fatal injuries caused either by deliberate abuse or by police officers’ negligence.  The six officers have been indicted and will be tried in court for homicide. 

Rallies and protests following Freddie Gray’s death have been marked by sharp divisions of opinions by people in Baltimore and elsewhere.  Some demonstrators carry signs insisting “BLACK LIVES MATTER,” and others wave signs countering “POLICE LIVES MATTER.”

  

My friend Ben Christensen reminded me early last week of a famous quote by philosopher Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). “There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation.” The word contempt has been stuck in my brain all week. That powerful word is not likely to get unstuck from my thinking anytime soon. I’m guessing the police officers implicated in the Freddie case failed to respond appropriately to him because they thought of him as someone beneath consideration, worthless, deserving of scorn. To them he was contemptible.  I’m guessing those officers are not basically bad people. They are probably considerate and perhaps even very good in their dealings with friends and with members of their own families.

...back on the bicycle today I rode out to the mouth of our own big river where it runs out into the Pacific Ocean.  Unlike Big River at Mendocino, most of the water in this picture has come into the channel from the sea.  Surfers and others who went out into the ocean today have been told it will be dangerous to go out tomorrow because a storm to the south will push high waves out way.

... and another thing: We know the answer to the question about whether or not a hummingbird's nest is used more than once.  After three weeks away, we found yesterday two newly hatched chicks in the same nest where two others were raised a couple of months ago.  The mother bird has busy today going out for food for them.

If you have ever driven down through the Central Valley of California on Interstate 5 or on Highway 99 to where the two great highways meet at the notorious Grapevine, that old-time nemisis of travelers, at any season of the year you will have been awed beauty of the hulking mountains that seem designed to block passage. Once upon a time it took several days to climb up over those mountains from the vast central valley to drop into the enigma that is now known as Los Angeles. Tejon Pass was almost as forbidding as the Grapevine.  On this day the automobile traffic hardly slowed to the legal speed up the Grapevine and through the pass... and someday people will be able to ride a high-speed train from San Francisco to Los Angeles in little more time that it now takes to fly the route.