Una mas...

...fotografia de archive.

Not...

...up to snuff. Still. Feels like cold/flu hybrid. When will this go away?

No photo from today. Took the camera with me, but overcast morning prevented me from shooting; nothing inspired me.

Since I have spring break on the mind, I'll include a shot from last spring break in Mendo. We're going back again this year.

I'm off to write a test on rhetorical and literary terms. Then bed.

Not stellar...

...but pix nonetheless. Two, to start making up for the last two no-pix days.

I was in bed and asleep before 9:00 p.m. last night. I should remind you that I'm wickedly nocturnal, so this was revolutionary. Dosed up on vitamin C and echinacea and Advil. Used an herb-filled heating pad on the stiff, sore neck. Better this morning. But it only lasted through early this afternoon. Think I'll have another pre-9-o'clock night.

My grading is stacking on my desk and multiplying in my bag.

Morning on campus

The Teacher's Altar

Nah, not today

I think I'm getting sick, and I'm using the bone-weariness as an excuse.

No pic today

I'll make up for it tomorrow.

My soul is low today. I think it's a combination of being weirdly tired, being heinously behind already/again, not feeling I'm fulfilling my complete responsibility to my students and this effing neverending job, that our department meeting today basically ended on the note that we have too many failing students and we need to revamp our curriculum again (we do this every year), the fact that one of my students is seeking help and emancipation but her situation probably isn't dire enough for the state to consider it...maybe not until her gangbanger family kills her or something, and the fact that another of my students (an aforementioned cutter) is having more self-inflicted violence and substance abuse issues (she came to school loaded once last week and also today).

I've spent the evening having a meltdown.

How are we supposed to handle this job again? I can't fucking do this. It is not in my power to give these kids the kind of help they really need.

Baybeh, baybeh, baybeh!

Lord, the kid is cute! Even though he was sleepy and nap-interrupted and eye-rubby, he maintain a lovely countenance, indulging us with smiles, thumbsucks, and even a laugh.

Colors

Ever notice how, when the day is dark and rainy, the colors just...

...pop?!

LittleKitty's Day to Shine

She's just adorable. And impish. And occasionally wicked. And often coy. She still thinks she's a kitten.

The reason...

...for so many things. And so many things for this reason.


I'm too tired to be witty. Perhaps tomorrow I'll post an essay.

I have...

...absolutely nothing of value to say today. I'm tired. It's raining, which is nice. I didn't have the time or energy to shoot a photo today, so I'll use another or two from the retreat. Guess I'll get religious on y'all tonight.

My retreat reading material

I had never read The Imitation of Christ before. It's pretty powerful, but one must access it in metered doses. The book that is rocking my world right now, that dovetailed so perfectly with the themes of our retreat, is The Crime of Living Cautiously, by Luci Shaw. Just the title alone grabbed me. And the book is proving to be quite wonderful. I'll share with you a poem she includes, one by Richard Wilbur:

Anonymous as cherubs
Over the crib of God,
White seeds are floating
Out of my burst pod.

What power had I
Before I learned to yield?
Shatter me, great wind:
I shall possess the field.

Richard Wilbur
“Two Voices in a Meadow”
In About a Milkweed Pod

Dynamic Day

And cold. Windy. Misty and rainy in the morning. And then just...cold.

They never look the same...

...on the computer as they did in the camera. Tonight the cloud-covered moon proved to be my match, despite more than twenty attempts.


See? Grr. I'm learning.

These were also interesting, though I find they look more like daytime. Stupid city lights. Oh, well. I had fun out there shooting, anyway, and that's half the point.

Retreatant: A Photo Essay

The breeze is cool. Stand in the sun if you want warmth. The sun, which glances off the ocean in the distance, which turns the eucalyptus into silhouette, which illuminates the cottontail I just saw hop across the pathway, is beginning to lower in the midafternoon sky.

I walk along the prayer path, camera in hand, ready to encounter God in nature. First I must remind myself to slow down. It is not enough to look. I must slow my pace, be still, know that he is God, know that the birds will come to those who go slowly, who stop, who wait, who breathe deeply and quietly.

One bird, a male, his brown mate hopping in the thicket below, sits, stares, refocuses, stares. He knows I am there, but he agrees to sit for a portrait, only if I don't come any closer.
The ruby-throated hummingbird knows I am there, too. He erupts out of his thicket, straight into the air, hovers and squawks with elegance, flies higher till I can no longer see him, even through my camera lens; then, mysteriously, invisibly, he returns to his thicket again, only to erupt for a repeat performance. He does this at least three times. I do not know if it is me he's trying to scare off or another intruding hummingbird. These ruby-throats all look alike to me at this distance.

The hawk pair wheels in the air, so high -- lazily, it appears from here -- but hunting is not a task for a lazy bird.

The flora here is part Southern California coastal, part Benedictine religious -- infinitely varied scrub, dotted with a nopale cactus here and and a few palms there, pines, eucalyptus and olive, flowers of purples and yellows and orange, one lone red tree leaf -- the embodiment of our lesson in perseverance -- a red-barked tree, and so many shades and variations of green and light that the eye boggles and tries to blend.

My smooth-stone bench is cool, the breeze lifts my hair, and the moon shows faintly, promising to shine tonight even after the coastal fog rolls in.

Retreated

We're back from said silent retreat. It was wonderful. Much to think about. Many challenges, much restoration. Too late tonight to write much, but I'll post a few shots...with promises of many more to come.

Run away, run away!

Retreat! POM and I are off to a silent Lenten retreat this weekend at an abbey down San Diego way. I'll do catch-up posting when we return Sunday evening or Monday.

Arrived home...

...to a blackout. It covered a good portion of the city, but quite sporadically, so that some streets were half lit and half dark. I don't know when it went out, but it didn't come back on till 8:30 p.m. Never mind that I had a grip of research outlines and resource evaluations to grades...that I really need to pass back tomorrow...and I couldn't get it light enough with candles to see very well. I spent most of those hours petting the dog and staring into candle- or fire-light.

Big Pic Story

I think today, instead of posting a photo (I should have some photo365+1 extra credit by now), I'll tell my story about the pic that got away. We all have these, don't we? The ones we could've/would've/should've gotten, but...we didn't have the camera, or the camera battery had died, or we ran out of film/memory, or the lighting was just too bad....

My dear friend, Madame X, and I were having yet another late night at school. When it was time for a dinner run, she popped over to my classroom on the opposite end of the universe, we hopped into her jett-y, and sped away to the nearest Wendy's for chicken sandwiches. As we emerged from the school parking lot, however, our eyes were drawn to the same ghastly vision. We hadn't even pulled from the middle turning lane into a normal driving lane before the garish colors began to materialize into clarity. It was trash day in our OC hamlet. The unnatural colors emanated from one trash can at the curb of a nearby apartment building.

It took a few moments before our minds registered what said spectacle actually was. You know how, when you have a car accident, your mind and memory register the event in slow motion, even though it only took split seconds to occur? It couldn't have taken us more than two seconds to drive past the overstuffed trash bin, but it feels as though the moment lasted ten times that. Madame X and I both glanced at the compelling colors sticking up out of the bin, and we registered its true form simultanously. It was a plastic, blond, lipstick-O-mouthed blow-up sex doll, partially deflated (I shudder to think why); a body, abandoned in a dumpster. Trashy indeed.

Cackles and howls of shocked recognition and laughter filled the jett-y. OMG, a photo op if I've ever seen one! But alas, I had left my camera at home! Nooooo! I had only my cell phone with its crappy camera, but something was better than nothing. But by the time we had processed this information, we were already through the intersection with a changing light on our heels. We vowed to stop by the serendipitous scene on our return from Wendy's. But again alas, on our way back, with hot, pungent sandwiches in hand, the jett-y filled with stomach-teasing temptations, Madame X refused to stop -- "We should," she said, as she shifted gears, sailed past, and turned into the parking lot. I blame her for the one that got away. (It was this big!)

Tuckered

As I was sitting at the dining room table, lights ablaze, grading papers and falling asleep, LittleKitty jumped up onto Partner-o-mine's lap and, not finding the perfect position she craved, settled her little head onto the table. Serendipity for today's photo post, for I hadn't snapped much today, none of merit certainly.

I empathize with her exhaustion (you know, kitty days are filled with stress and activity), and so I am off to bed.

Morning Glow-ry

I woke a little after eight, early for me, especially on a day off. But I needed to accomplish things today, so after reading for about ten minutes, I got up. I glanced out the window to the backyard to behold the morning sun lighting up the new leaves on the ash trees, which never cease to amaze me for their quick recovery from total leaf loss. The sun seemed only to affect the new leaves, leaving all else in near darkness.

I can't decide which of the two I prefer. Suggestions?

Whaddya' think?

No, it's not real. It came on a wine ad in a magazine. I wouldn't really get a dragon. This is just practice. It's only the second time I've worn a temporary, but I'm seriously considering getting a real one, possibly for my birthday.

This is the location I'm contemplating, for two reasons: Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls has one there and I've always thought it looked great, tough, cool (honest! she rocks!); and if I'm gonna go through pain, I want to be able to see the fruits of it anytime I wish.

I'm hyperconscious about it looking good; I am considering my age, weight, etc., in relation to the potential location.

POM smirked at me today and said I look like a truckdriver. Thoughts?

Springing Sunday

The bees were in full hum on this flowering tree in the Trader Joe's parking lot. This shot is fairly indicative of the gorgeous spring weekend we've enjoyed.

I've been in the cooking mood, for some reason, so after church, we stocked up on recipe ingredients at my favorite grocery (TJs). This evening I cooked cream-of-veggie soup, combining two different recipes (cream of broccoli and cream of spinach, with a few additions of my own) from Mollie Katzen's Moosewood Cookbook, an oldie-but-goodie. The final creation turned out OK -- it was a bit bland (my fault, I'm sure), so I dosed it with some Cholula hot sauce, which added at least a kick even if it wasn't really the missing element I was looking for. The addition of oyster crackers and shaved parmesan to the bowl helped. If nothing else, it's a fairly healthy soup, with tons of vegetable matter and minerals.

A Good Day...

...for a photo tour. But we're staying local. Today was another upper-70's day -- truly blissful -- so I stayed in what I wore to bed, added some slip-on shoes, and played in the backyard for a while. I was also taken by the bug to cook, so I did, heading out to the garden to snip or pick fresh ingredients, and grilling several different items on the grill (chicken, eggplant, elephant garlic).

Days like these make me long for summer and curse the fact that we're still in school.

I also opened up the house and lazed on the couch, reading. Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, by Sara Miles, has proven to be food for thought.

Sun and purple flowers on the arbor

Veins of light

A face this mother loves!

Action shot -- itchy back, oh this feels so good, oh man i gotta do it some more!

Hahaha! Mid-shake. This one cracks me up, and I couldn't resist posting it, even though, by photographic standards, it's a terrible shot.

Gone wild, has the back of the backyard

I stood beneath the arbor, and lo, the arbor hummed.

Eggplant parmesan, whole wheat sourdough with red pepper and sundried tomato spreads

Not a great picture, no. But I posted it because, if you click it and make it large, you can observe evidence of the movement of the stars...and this was only about a 30-second shot. Does the earth really move that quickly? Wow.