Afternoon capture

Been meaning to shoot this tree since last summer, and especially for the past 6-7 weeks. Finally got my chance tonight. Glad I waited for the sunset.

This photo does nothing to hint at the actual size of this tree. It's quite large and noticeably mature...and it's a hottie, as trees go.

Nope, no color treatment or photoshopping whatsoever. This plant is truly two-tone. I know I'm not supposed to comment on my own shots, but this one blows me away.

Why do I love leaves' vascular systems so much but get queasy when anything has to do with the human vascular system? Hmm.

Homework Avoidance: Notes of Distraction

I'm sitting in a park
on a bench
in the breeze
beholding sun-spotted trees
feeling
hearing
canopy winds and small planes casting shadows.

My ipod, battery low,
still plays Aim and Em true and clear.
Soccer camps traipse by,
undergrads chew chips on nearby benches
and chat with friends.
I turn the wheel, the volume up.

Soon I'll hike the hill to
a box of a room
to Pope and Swift the afternoon away.

A boy navigates the hills and gullies of
the magnolia's roots,
inspecting bark and climbability.

These invite pensive reflection,
stir up staring,
invoke observation
behind dark glasses and feigned nonchalance.

The knocks of improving hammers waft
across the field of erratic butterfly flirtation
and bird chirps.
Arabic and Chinese accents consult
about the grounds
and an apartment.

Brown leaves fall at different speeds
to the green ground.
The wind roars up high,
even though these are not the mountains.

The battery died,
the board now hurts my butt,
and the clock indicates that Pope is ready for an audience.

A spider falls on my neck --
a green scout from a ferny tree --
and loses his life in the expedition.

The Day's Excitements (Tuesday)

• We had an earthquake -- originally reported as a 5.8 but revised downward to 5.4. I was in a nice, new building on rollers, and it didn't get too bad there. None of us even left the building. No damage in our area or our house, though I couldn't make a cell phone call for about half an hour afterwards. I found that rather disturbing, because isn't that the reason most of us say we have cell phones -- for emergencies?! Sheesh. Anyway, a small mirror fell off the wall at the house of the friend whose dogs we're feeding this week. That was all. Just a reminder that yes, indeed, one day we will fall off into the ocean and so we had better be prepared. It was rather fun hearing Kay Hutton, supremely competent earthquake goddess of Caltech, again after a hiatus. I hope the next ones will continue to be these little pressure relievers. (Let it be so, lord!)
• One note of hilarity -- in the building where all of my classes are held, the director of our program came running out into the hallway during the actual event and, in his inimitable British accent (tinged, apparently, with African and German notes), started shouting (for comic relief), "We're all going to diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie!" And when the occupants of that building (a considerably older specimen) had amassed in the courtyard, he proceeded to bellow, "It's every man for himself!" It's a good thing to be able to laugh where an earthquake is concerned.
• My little bunny buddy visited me as I was catching up on reading Alexander Pope at an outdoor table after lunch. He wasn't a yard away from me. He is not a tame bunny, by any stretch of the imagination, but he posed for my pictures and held eye contact with me for a bit before hopping his cottontail bunny butt across the walk and into the ivy. It was a small gift.

Son of Childmecca

I had an eye for lines and curves yesterday evening.

Click to embiggen for the reflection on his nose.

Gettin' mighty creative with the firework shapes these days. Boy, in my day...they didn't go fer none of this funny bidness. We had us some normal fireworks, I tell ya'! Now they're getting so fancy-pantsy with these crazy shapes and colors. Boy, I'll tell ya'...!

These are Childmecca fireworks as seen from Son of Childmecca,

the land across the expanse of the great brick divide.

Highlights from the week's highlight

I can't resist posting more photos from our blogger meet-up Bolsa Chica nature-fest! Most of these have been cropped and enlarged for your viewing pleasure. I hope you enjoy these even slightly as much as I do.

This is one of the fuzzy-poof baby terns.

One of the smoothhound sharks we saw in the estuary

A cute little piper couple, out on a hot dinner date

Look at the beak on this guy! Size does matter, apparently.

OMG, OMG, OMG! I actually got a mostly unblurry shot of them skimming!

These guys send me into waves of awe. (Click to embiggen this one.)

Watery pastoral

Tern in flight

Moi (hiding behind camera) and my friend and blogger buddy, Linda,

standing on the boardwalk, reflected in the estuary

Consider this our official blogger meet-up photo. :-)

Disturbance. Suspense. Potential.

(Click to embiggen.)

Wildlife!

It was only my second ever blogger meet-up. I was so giddy! I was especially excited because she is the first blogger I ever emailed offblog and the first to whom I became unanonymous. (Is that a word?)

She wisely suggested we do something outdoors. It was an excellent suggestion, and there's so much to do here in SoCal that it would be a shame not to. Besides, we all know good and well that otherwise we'd just center everything around the event of eating. (Isn't that what all good former-Baptists do?)

We decided to go to the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, which is a fabulous restoration project here in SoCal. POM and I had been several times in the past, and it was really cool, but it had been some time since we'd been back. Last year they did a huge expansion project, and the newspaper just published a story indicating that it had proven extremely successful and that the animal population was undergoing a huge explosion. Awesome! We were so there!

The newspaper story didn't lie; it was better than we had remembered it. The bird population had extremely multiplied. We saw more life in the water than ever before. This is an amazing project!

This egret was the first up-close wildlife we saw as we crossed the boardwalk. (We think it's a Great Egret, but we could be wrong.)

This is the nesting ground of the tern population. (I think most of these are Least Terns. Again, I could be wrong about that.) These guys were noisy noisy noisy! They're hilarious. They constantly talk to one another as they fish the waters, totally giving away any stealth they may have hoped for. They dive -- splat! -- into the water, sometimes unexpectedly, with great splashes. When they fish, they fly in loose groupings; when they fly up high, it's in pairs, in perfect precision, with acrobatic speed and liquid skill. Their babies are grey fuzzpoofs, most of whom are learning to fly just about now.

(How much more quintessential SoCal does it get?)

We saw so many different species -- small sharks, round stingrays, unknown fishes that jumped and rippled the waters, terns, black skimmers, pipers of various sorts, sparrows, brown pelicans, egrets, a blue heron, and others whose names we did not know. Several of these species are endangered or threatened.

The black skimmers proved to be our consensus favorite. They fly over the water, then swoop down directly above it, open their beaks, and literally skim the water open-mouthed for food, lining a trail behind them in the water's surface. It is amazing, quiet, beautiful -- it is mystical and holy somehow. When they fly in twos or threes, their calls to one another are deeper and more resonant than the raucous soprano terns. The skimmer's call calms, pacifies.

We spent the time strolling leisurely, snapping pictures, talking, ogling nature, and marveling at God's creativity and sense of humor. We mused about the various behaviors and thought-processes of the birds we beheld. (The egrets who kept their faces in the water for literally ten minutes at a time surely must be depressed and suicidal, we speculated. The fish who were brazen enough to jump in the faces of all these hunting birds must surely know they are too big to fit in the gullets of these bird breeds and so flaunt their freedom. The piper with the ridiculously lengthy beak flew away when we joked and commented on it, so we were sure he was sensitive and offended about our remarks on the size of his...appendage.) The plonking-diving-splashing terns never got old and never failed to elicit a laugh. The skimmers evoked either low exclamations of amazement or reverential silence.

Just as the sun sank below the horizon, we left in search of sustenance and further conversation, which we were successful in finding. By the way, those three shadows on the island there are me, Linda, and POM...and an apparently depressed egret, poor dear.

We're hoping for breakfast tomorrow before she leaves our sunny clime, and you can be sure you'll see additional pictures of this event soon. There's more where that came from!

P.S. Click to embiggen any of these to ridiculous sizes for more detail.

Like sails

Thoughtful and lively sun coverings at the student center study patio.

Around town at twilight

The light-spot is a streetlamp. I think my tree looks like a fork with salad on it. I think my ass looks like...well.... I'm workin' on it.

Going gardening 2

And now for the garden's fauna (loosely applied). Heh.

Approaching the edible garden catwalk.

Through a window at the Boddey house.

Pensive POM.

She was pondering these.

Our hiding and silent buddy, biding his time till sun and people go away.

Going gardening

A few more scenes from the Descanso gardens seem to be in order.

Sometimes I'm a fan of overexposure. I like what it did for this plant.

...And for this one. I'd like to go back and have several more goes at this one.

I just want to dive into this one and tread its pillowy water. I want rub my legs all over it the way the nieces do with their silkies (blankies). Click to embiggen it for the full effect.

Bark pattern of coastal oak. Its bark is better than its bite.

This one's got tracks, and I ain't talking heroin.

I am boo-ful.

Baby E. Welcome, sweetie.

Garden

There'll be more photos from this trip to Descanso Gardens. It was a lovely late Christmas present. I like spreading Christmas throughout the whole year. We decided to do that as a family, and it's been nice.

Join me...

...in a shriek at the horribleness of these frightening mannequins! I prefer the faceless, featureless, or even headless varieties to these freaky monstronsities! Yikes!

Humbled and Exalted

A friend was ordained Saturday. Before the ceremony, candidates prostrate themselves before the altar to demonstrate humility and unworthiness of the calling. I'm sure there's a lot more significance and symbolism than that, but this image of prostration always gets me.


I've been to a number of these ceremonies, both for the diaconate and the priesthood, even a consecration of a bishop, but I've never seen (or at least my faulty memory cannot recall seeing) the newly made priest stand beside the bishop and mimic his every move, sharing the consecrating of the elements for holy communion. I thought it was pretty cool.

Another innovation was that he returned to the altar after the service was over to bless his own family and congregants who wished it. I thought that was powerful, too.

Being Tracked

Tracking the shadows.

Martian-head shadow. (My kingdom for a macro lens!)

Favored Glade

I look at this as I read my assignments each morning. The hummingbirds, fat bees, bunnies, squirrels, and even a woodpecker this week populate the air physically and aurally. I take a lot of stare-breaks from my reading.