REDONDOWRITER'S SACRED ORDINARY

Finish This Sentence: If It Weren't For-----

If it weren't for my dog Cookie, would I stay at home as much as I do? No, I probably would travel more if I didn't have Cookie, but each day I have with her, given her life span was predicted to be over several months ago, is a gift. She stayed home when with a friend who house and pet sits when I went to Nevada.

This photo of her was taken in the evening on my first day back at work on Wednesday. Because I'm helping out in another department at school right now, I have access to the "good" camera--a Canon EOS Rebel 40D with a super zoom lens. I brought the camera home to practice and who else would be a better subject to practice on? Be sure to double click so you can see her white eyelashes and her markings up close. The opposite side of her face around her eye is black with black eyelashes. Cookie goes everywhere I go inside the house and when the weather is cooler, she often rides with me in the car to errands. Right before I went to Nevada, I had to re-park my car after getting my luggage in the house and she came along for the ride. For the first time, she couldn't jump in the car by herself. I'll get her some of those pet stairs ultimately, but she did manage, with help, to get in the bathtub a few weeks ago for her bath. She used to just jump in. I have the mobile pet groomer come every few months now. 

On Monday, she sees the vet for a check-up. Dr. Steve will shake his head in amazement that she is still here and will probably say, "Whatever you are doing, keep doing it." I do cook her fresh meat and chicken to mix in with senior, all natural dog food and she takes enzymes and probiotics. She's no longer medicated for the Cushings, but she is eating well and is happy to go for short walks. Her arthritis is significant. We kind of limp along together on walks. 

I've had an especially hard time getting rid of my travel fatigue this time. I've been very busy at work and have to be in at 8 a.m. instead of my cherished 10 a.m., but that is temporary. Each night I've had things I had to do away from home and I just crash at bedtime. Tonight I began working on my two projects for my art class and actually did some laundry. Tomorrow is a free day, praise the Lord. 

Around the 'Hood - Part I - The Port of Los Angeles

Time whizzes by and so often all of us become oblivious of our surroundings. Because I carry my camera with me everywhere I go, I often find myself snapping photos of people, places and activities simply for my own pleasure, most of which accumulate in iPhoto. Most of the photos end up floating by as screen savers, but I am trying really hard lately to see beyond what I ordinarily see with my own eyes and through the lens in the camera. In my own neighborhood in Redondo Beach, where I walk Cookie, when I set an intention to be really aware of my environment, I’m always amazed by spotting new things I never saw before.

Yesterday I went on my second Palos Verdes/San Pedro private tour with a well known Los Angeles archivist, who founded my school’s archives and advises me in my role as archivist. There is a spectacular view of the Port of Los Angeles called Crown View in the Miraleste Hills above Palos Verdes and I asked to see it again so I could snap this photo.

When I downloaded the photos I decided to periodically post photos of  “Around the ‘Hood” and this Port of Los Angeles photo is my official first. I hope some of you who live in the South Bay area of Los Angeles will consider being guest photographers and editors at Sacred Ordinary. Just e-mail me at the link in my profile on this page.

I also invite to all of you to look with intention at your surroundings and find things you hadn’t noticed before.

My first view of the Port of Los Angeles was when I went to camp in Pt. Fermin Park in San Pedro when I was eight-years-old. I was so homesick I didn’t appreciate what I saw, but when my husband and I moved to the South Bay in 1959, it became a place I liked to visit from time to time. The view of the port is never static. Ships are built here, cargo comes into and out of the harbor, cruise ships leave from here, and there are some good restaurants in the Ports of Call Village and all along the coast front. A favorite restaurant is the 22nd Street Landing near the Los Angeles Yacht Club. There is a wonderful, interactive museum at the Port called the Maritime Museum. A virtual tour of adults and kids is at the History of the Port of Los Angeles . The Port also has an educational component called TransPORTer which is a traveling museum for the community and the Cabrillo Museum Aquarium is nearby at Pt. Fermin. 

The town of San Pedro has long been a favorite place of mine in the South Bay. The port is 20 miles from downtown L.A. and if you click the Port links above, you'll find a complete history from the Indians, to the explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo "finding it" in 1542, and Spain's interest in 1769. In 1822, the newly independent Mexican government lifted trade restrictions and San Pedro was born. The Mexican government granted three ranchos near the bay primarily used for cattle raising. By 1848 the harbor and San Pedro were booming and Phineas Banning as instrumental in bringing innovative changes and the fight began for a free harbor. 

By the turn of the century, L.A.'s population was over 100,000. With that in mind, in 1906 the city anexed a 16-mile strip of land on the outskirts of San Pedro and Wilmington, towns that 3 years later would join the City of Los Angeles. The Port was officially founded in 1907 with the creation of the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners. 

The Port of Los Angeles is the number one port by container volume and cargo value in the United States, handling a record-breaking 8.4 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) in calendar year 2007.

Today, the Port generates 919,000 regional jobs and $39.1 billion in annual wages and tax revenues, although like the entire economy, business at the port has decreased this past year. . A proprietary department of the City of Los Angeles, the Port is self-supporting and does not receive taxpayer dollars. 

This is probably way more than you wanted to know about the Port of Los Angeles, but I never tire of just looking at everything that is going on down there. There are some excellent books written about the Port of Los Angeles and the city of San Pedro if anyone wants to Google and find out more. 

Giving Up Secrets the Mystical Way

This past week has just sped by with tasks, appointments, catching up, reading and my high continuing learning curve on the art journal. I am reading a book by Mindy Friddle, author of the Garden Angel, which I loved, "Secret Keepers." It's hard to put it down, but I'm trying to balance a lot of the tasks on my "to do" list and I'm rationing and keeping track of time spent on each. I have a tendency to become totally immersed in some task and then I leave everything else behind. Or, I hop all over the place and don't get anything done. So, I've been neglecting the blog.  

But, here's the heading in one of the sections of "Secret Keepers" along with a photo picked at random from my 9,000 iPhotos that reminded me of little boys and secrets. The guy in the middle is my grandson Fritz.

"Anything will give up its secrets if you love it enough." 

----- George Washington Carver

Some Waters Have Miraculous Powers

"Water unceasingly changes shapes and transforms itself. It is thus a model out of which everything can be born. Water, consequently, becomes a symbol of fertility that can be found in all the myths and all the religions. Beings and things are born of water. Water also possesses medicinal virtues. Some waters are recognized miraculous powers capable of healing the bodies." 

    -- Brit at Earth Day Network

This is the fountain at Farnham Martin’s Park in Palos Verdes Estates next to the Malaga Cove Library. It is the setting for the summer concert series and wedding photo shoots are common here. Sometimes when I leave the library I like to just sit by the fountain and listen to it gurgle.

Today was my last official work day for six weeks and I am sorely in need of some water that will heal my inertia and negative attitude. I'm burned out, so tonight I spent a few hours with my journal, laptop, and lots of colored pencils. I wrote, doodled, dreamed, vented. 

I made lists of things I want to do in the next six weeks, and two of the weeks will be spent in Tumwater, WA and Pt. Angeles, WA with family. That leaves four weeks, but what am I moaning about? Even when I work, I supposedly work 20 hours per week. 

I finally began to write my list of gratitudes and I am so blessed in so many ways. I just forget sometimes. That reminds me. My dear nephew Ted brought back two vials of water for me from the Holy Land last year. One is from the Jordan River and the other is from the Sea of Galilee. I think dipping into them is very apropos on this night of life review. 

CAPTION THIS PHOTO

OK, this is me and I am obviously engaged in a conversation on Mother's Day about something, but I leave it to your imagination what it is. Remember that there were children present. I KNOW what you were thinking. Can you share your caption? 

By the way, right after this was snapped, my food plate fell on the grass. In my heart of hearts I still see myself in my mind's eye as about 30, but this photo proves that I'm more than that. But, hey, get used to it, girlfriend, I tell myself. You're an elder now.

A Pink and Purple Day Celebrated in Haiku

These are two of several plantings on the campus of my school. Today felt like a pink and purple day (a good day, actually). My Mac users group met at my house this a.m., I went to lunch with my friend Terri who is visiting from the UK, I got to read for a few hours, take Cookie for a walk, and had Mexican dinner with my friends Rick and Orma. I found a series of pink and purple haikus from PoemHunter that matched my mood. Did you remember that the month of April was National Poetry Month? Personally I think we should celebrate with poetry every day. 

Haiku #70 Lift Your Voices In Song (1-7) We sing your praises For this pink and purple day Of sky water sand (1)  We thank you Father For this pink and lilac day With grand purple sands (2)  Pink and lilac haze A perfect day for lovers Mystic and profound (3)  A day of days In sky of pink lilaz haze Horizon mimics (4)  Pink and lilac day Where we stand on purple sand Edged in pink waters (5)  Oh mystic pink day Your sky in brilliant array How grand purple sand (6)  Pink and lilac haze Profound truth another day Pink water purple sand (7)  Dorothy (Alves) Holmes

Variations on Periwinkle Blue Flowers

Variation I

Variation II

Variation III

Variation IV

IN THE SILENCE, IN THE SILENCE

Plastic Tape Figure Casting for Your Average Joe or Joanne

Personally, I have never seen clear plastic tape figure casting as an art project, but I’ve seen it now—and I’m utterly fascinated.

 On the wall in the main entrance to the library of my school, are four knock-your-socks off plastic figures on display this month. They were created in the Art I classes as group projects. The teacher explained the process to me but it seemed so easy I wondered why I had never seen this art form before. 

One student becomes the model in whatever posture the team decides upon and one layer of plastic wrap is adhered all around—leaving nostril hole space. The rest of the students quickly wrap the plastic tape several times around so the cast will keep its shape. Finally, the tape is carefully slit down the back so the model is free of the cast and the piece is retaped to cover the slit. 

Several Internet sites explain this art form, a site called Tape Sculpture has a four step tutorial with pictures, as well as a video of how it is done. Another site, the Incredible Art Department, lays out the art form as a lesson plan.

This much I know. My body is considerably larger than it was when I was a girl. Maybe if someone made a plastic figure cast of me and I saw it, I would finally “get it” and do what I have to do get smaller and healthier. Maybe is the operative word.

I currently have two mannequins and one life-size cardboard cutout of James Dean in my home. Maybe I'll make one of each family member. In a Steve Martin-ish move, I won't be a lonely gal anymore. 

 

 

Every Photo Tells a Story

I'm a photo nut; I admit it. Macs have an application called iPhoto and I'm forever downloading photos I take, often in my daily life, doing the stuff I do. The photos then rotate as a screen saver and I am flooded with memories as they magically appear on the screen. I manipulate my photos in PhotoShop and keep planning to practice more of the artistic techniques I've learned, but I never quite dedicate the time to practice. One of these days-----Educated as a journalist, most of my photos are of people and they are designed to tell a story. I'm not a particularly good photographer, but I absolutely love taking photos and often use them on the blog or in my handwritten journal.  

Leah, who moderates Creative Every Day, recently linked to Nancy at Every Photo Tells a Story. The purpose of Nancy's blog is to provide photography or artwork as a prompt for writing or other creative explorations. Check it out. 

And here's a photo among hundreds I took in Portland last summer that is enigmatic for me. It was taken in the back yard of a garage sale that we went to. 

Just click to enlarge it. For several months I have been personally writing about the meaning of home and the home I live in specifically. It is the main focus of the vision board I am continuing to create. 

This is actually a playhouse and how I longed for a playhouse when I was a kid. Instead, my dad took the frame he built for the back of his truck and put it under a tree for me one summer. We put tarps over it--and voila. I had a play house. 

But, my favorite "house" was actually in an adjoining field that had lots of old trees that went all the way down to the ground--and lots of bearing orange trees. My friend Dannie reads here and I wonder if you remember how you and Claudia and I would tuck away under a tree and pretend we were cow girls? And we built a fort up on a hillside off the fire trail, again with wood my dad gave us. The Polly Pigtail Club met there and one time a bunch of boys pretended they were coyotes and scared us half to death. 

Anyhow, there's something about this photo that brings the child out in me. 

Does it evoke anything in you?

 

 

Somewhere Over the Rainbow in Redondo Beach

I It rained yesterday, most of today, and rain is predicted for tomorrow. We need the rain badly and (knock on wood) so far this year my house has held tight without leaks. It should after all the fixes and upgrades I've done every time a leak would spring up. 

At sunset, the rain stopped for a while and I literally ran outside with the camera because I could see a rainbow out my bedroom window. When I was younger, it seemed like I saw rainbows often, but never as often in the city as I did out in the boonies. When you see all the phone and electric lines (we are not underground yet in my eclectic neighborhood), it takes a little (but only a little) of the rainbow magic away. 

I did manage to duck out to a close estate sale today  which had gotten hit so hard with the rain as they had about half of everything out on the back lawn and couldn't tarp it fast enough. I saw one lady buy a totally soaking wet 12 x 12' berber carpet, which it took two men to carry to her car. Such a deal! I got some arts and crafts odds and ends and felt my usual sadness knowing that his woman's life had ended or narrowed down. 

The rest of the day and evening I have spent researching and creating the February issue of my Macintosh user's group newsletter. 

Cookie, who is still perky, does not like rain and has had two accidents in the house today. And wouldn't you know that I'm hosting my Mac group's core group in the morning. After I hit post, I'm off to prepare the living room for company. It will be a good day to have a fire, however. As for Cookie, she will go out shortly for a walk, like it or not. 

So, above is my version of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." And below is Doris Day's version at YouTube. I could have placed Judy Garland's really famous version, but I loved this one because of all the nostalgia photos. How in the heck does time pass so quickly?

os.