Flickr Photos

The pictures I put on my previous post gathered a few nice comments. A few years ago, I put some of my photos on Flickr. I'm not an artist but I enjoy taking photos and try to do my best. The link to those Flickr photos is here if any of my readers would like to peruse them.

They were mostly taken around my neighborhood in central Virginia. A few were taken in central Florida. I took the photos with a $99 camera I bought at Walmart. 

I hope someone enjoys them, but even if no one does, I still enjoyed creating them and, just as Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald sang, "they can't take that away from me."

A Walk in the Park

I got bored with studying Spanish. I needed a break. I called my friend Butch who lives a short distance down the street, but he wasn't home; he was visiting his friend Cindy. So I left the house and walked across the street to the neighborhood park. Then I ambled around the park, taking photos and sharing them with my friend Nuria in Costa Rica. 

The air temperature was 85°F and a cool breeze wafted through the park. It was very comfortable.

There wasn't another person in the park. Just me. The park was very quiet. There were no sounds of auto traffic, there were no voices. Just sun, a gentle breeze, and silence. It was a very peaceful place.

This last picture was taken at 7:53PM, EDT. There was still plenty of sunlight.

I ambled back to my home. I decided to do a few more Spanish lessons. I wished there was some kind of Star Trek-like "Holodeck" where I could save my walk in the park, and then call it up whenever I feel like I need a quiet place. It was a beautiful place and utterly peaceful. Pictures can't convey the experience, but pictures are all I have. 

It's already early Monday where I live. Have a great week!

Monday Morning

The morning is very quiet, except for the sounds of birds chirping and an occasional passing car. The temperature is 75°F and I have a window open beside me. The sunlight is very hot, very intense. I'd like to go outside and do some yard work, but it's too hot. I don't like doing yard work too early in the morning because the tools I use are noisy and I don't want to disturb neighbors who may still be asleep. That leaves late afternoon for doing yard work. And at this moment, it's not late afternoon.

I hear the slam of a car door. One of my neighbors is going somewhere, or coming home from somewhere. School has ended and summer vacation has begun for the children. I would expect to be hearing sounds of children playing, but I don't. Maybe they are sleeping late. Now, even the birds have stopped chirping. All is silent. Well, all would be silent were it not for the tinnitus ringing in my head. But I'm accustomed to that sound—I've lived with it for many years.

For breakfast I ate two chili dogs. Hot dogs, they are, topped with a streak of mustard and a hefty serving of hot dog chili, and diced onion. The best hot dog chili I've found is Food Lion hot dog chili. It has no meat in it, but then, real chili has no meat, does it? If you add meat to chili, it's called chili con carne—Spanish for "chili with meat." Chili is made of peppers and spices. Of course, many people make chili with ground beef and call what they've made "chili." Even the International Chili Society (whoever they are) says chili has meat. So the name has gathered confusion. But confused or not, my chili dogs are delicious. 

For lunch I'll eat a garden salad. Or two. I make them with iceberg lettuce, red cabbage, carrots, cherry tomatoes sliced in half, and chopped green onions (scallions). I top the salad with a tasty dressing, usually white balsamic or thousand island, plus bacon bits and sometimes croutons. The result is really good—almost as good as my chili dogs.

Now, the outside temperature has risen to 84°F and the air is muggy. (Muggy means unpleasantly hot and humid with little stirring of the air.) By this afternoon the temperature forecast says the air will be 95°. I've closed the window beside me and the a/c is running. What is the weather like where you live?

I began this post with absolutely nothing to write about, and I'm ending it with six paragraphs filled with absolutely nothing. It's a mid-summer Monday morning filled with hot, humid air and summer doldrums. Maybe things will get better. I do have many writings in my computer that are much more interesting than a Monday Morning, but I'm not sure I'll ever publish them. Some of them feel too personal to share, or I think "No one would find this interesting," or I decided they're simply not good enough to publish, or a combination of those things. Maybe one day, I tell myself, again and again.

Maybe one day.

Ed Sheeran

The song of the day is Thinking Out Loud from the 2014 album × (pronounced "multiply") by English singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran.

Life Lessons

One day, about a year ago, I decided to write down some "life lessons" I've learned. They were nothing amazing, merely some observations. And I chose to write these observations in Google Slides so that I could learn just a little bit about how Slides works. Basically, I was simply playing with Google Slides.

I got a few lessons written and something interrupted me—which happens a lot—and when I returned to writing Life Lessons, my inspiration was gone and I never finished it. But here below is the part I wrote. It's nothing amazing, and it's nothing most people don't know. But sometimes it's good to remind ourselves of the important things that we already know.

Summer Afternoon

It's the middle of June. Summertime. My blog inspiration is low, but I have lots of files on my PC that contain various pages I've written, so I thought, why not use them? What follows is an excerpt from one of my rambling writings.

At 7:10 PM, I decide to take my evening walk.  The air is about 85 degrees, and after the high 90s to low 100s we’ve had all summer the air feels good.  On Lynchburg Avenue I pass two men talking across a chain link fence; the man on the sidewalk side of the fence has with him a Siberian Husky.  I stop to talk to the men about the dog.  The 6-month-old Husky is friendly and jumps on me to try to lick my face.  I continue on my way past the middle school; the middle-schoolers are playing football behind the school this evening.  Their impromptu athletic field is well below the roads around it, and as I pass by I look down on the field.  Parents line the edge of the field, sitting in folding chairs watching their kids get exercise.  I pass by parents sitting in parked cars and pickups watching events on the field below.
I go east for a couple of blocks then turn south.  An elderly man sits in a rocking chair on a porch.  “It’s a great day for sitting on the porch”, I say to him.  “A lot better than a month ago”, he replies, smiling.  I continue south on Cameron Avenue.  As I cross Jackson Avenue, I see a man in a van having an argument with a woman standing beside the driver’s door.  I don’t know what the argument is about; they argue in Spanish.  Despite studying Spanish for two years in high school, I remember only enough now to say “No hablo Español”.

I turn onto Virginia Avenue and walk a short block to Violet Bank (originally a residence, now a museum).  It was built in 1775 but it burned down in 1810. The original owner had died and his wife had it rebuilt in 1815. Its architecture is in the Federal style of the period.  Violet Bank is locally famous for the massive and gnarly cucumber tree standing in front.  I’ve never been inside the museum and I’m not going inside today.

I turn onto Arlington Avenue.  It’s a short and pretty block.  The street is divided into two lanes by a center median of grass and trees.  A half minute later I arrive at Boulevard.  If I turn south I will begin a long downhill walk to the Appomatox River and a bridge across it that connects to Petersburg just a couple blocks from Old Towne.

Instead I turn north.  About two blocks later I walk by the World War 2 Memorial Park.  It’s kept in beautiful condition.  A block further on, and the Boulevard bends and blends into an assemblage of auto shops, used car lots, tattoo parlors, hair stylists, gas stations, drugstores – a gritty smorgasbord of American roadside mediocrity.  A young black woman jogs toward me with iPod earbuds plugged into her head.  I figure she’s listening to music as she jogs, but as she passes I hear her utter a phrase in some foreign language, so I surmise she’s learning a new language as she jogs.  Exercise for the body and the brain? Most likely, she’s a soldier stationed at nearby Fort Lee, preparing herself to go overseas.

I head for a drugstore entrance.  I see a gal who waits tables at the local Applebee’s Bar and Grill.  She’s talking to someone in a car, and though she sees me she gives no hint of recognizing me.  Nor do I hint at recognizing her.  Some kind of unwritten social convention seems to be at work, making each of us invisible.  As I approach her I can tell she’s talking about a recent trip to Myrtle Beach.  As I pass her and enter the store, I hear her say she was “bitten by a jellyfish”.  I knew jellyfish can sting, but are they biting now? They have teeth now? Ouch.

I spend two minutes inside the store, basking in the air conditioning.  Then—back outside.  It’s getting dusky.  Soon I’m back on Lynchburg Avenue and headed toward Lafayette.  Ahead of me I see my neighbor Carey walking her two dogs.  She’s at the corner of Lafayette and Lynchburg.  I wave and call her name.  I hear her say something, but can’t tell what.  I’ve lived two houses from her for seven years, and I’ve spoken with her in her front yard or over her backyard fence many times, and yet she’s never asked my name or given any indication she knows it.  Of course, she’s only 37; I barely exist to people born after 1970. They consider me a part of the fossil record. “Say, shouldn’t you be in a museum?”

Give me time. I’ll be there soon enough. 

It’s been a long, hot summer. Long. Hot. Summer. Did I mention hot?

Before modern air conditioning was invented (by Willis Haviland Carrier in 1902), European nations considered Washington, D.C., to be a hardship post for their ambassadors.  Summer in Washington was hot and humid.  One hundred twenty miles to the south lies my small central Virginia town.  Summers here are usually hotter than summers in Washington.  In fact, summer temperatures here are often hotter than central Florida temperatures.  Florida is helped by air off the ocean while Virginia bakes under air that has crossed thousands of miles of hot interior.

It reminds me of a bit of sarcasm from the movie Aliens (the second Alien movie):

Frost: “Hot as hell in here.”
Hudson: “Yeah man, but it's a dry heat!”

I continue my journey home. Afternoon continues its journey to night. Summer continues its journey to autumn. We all have places to be.

God Dreamed A Dream

Once in a great while, perhaps once in a lifetime, and even then only if one is very lucky, one (meaning you, me, that other guy, whats-his-name, the one with the Booker Prize on the fireplace mantle) may have a dream so deep, so inspirational, so once-in-a-lifetime, that it had to come straight from God's mind to one of ours. It's ephemeral, evaporating even as we think about it, but even if it were not, there are no words in base, human-uttered language to convey the complexity, the polish, the purity, the clarity of such a dream. It's almost a transference from God-mind to human-mind. It's like pouring a river of thought into a thimble. The human mind can't hold it. I had one of those dreams yesterday morning. I jumped out of bed and walked straight to the computer, but I could feel the dream fading as I walked. I wanted to jot down some high points of the dream so I wouldn't forget it entirely, but as I sat down at the keyboard, I knew it was hopeless. (Mental note: next time, immediately grab my cell phone and begin dictating whatever I can recall into my note taker.)

My point is not to share the unshareable but only to say: it's there. Like the dream of a bug, living his bug life, who one night, in a flash of bug insight, suddenly understands Calculus, or van Gogh's The Starry Night; the bug cannot share it, nor even retain the memory of what it experienced. At best, we humans might retain the memory of that memory.

Maybe I am a bug dreaming I'm a human. Like Zhuangzi, who wasn't sure if he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man, maybe I'll wake up and I'll be back in my bug's life. Then, what kind of dreams do bugs have? Do they have nightmares? Do they have feelings? And when God considers us humans, are we merely bugs to Him? That would explain a lot.

I'd like to write a blog post every day, but inspiration doesn't come on a schedule. When inspiration comes during the day, the shine is scrubbed off before I can put it into print. When inspiration comes at night, I feel the purity of it but it's a ghost darting through my consciousness, gone in a minute. 

The real artists are the ones who can retain more of that inspiration than I can retain. That is a gift I'd like to have. Maybe it's also a curse. Van Gogh was inspired; yet, he also cut off his left ear during a hallucination that he could not later recall. That's too much of a good thing. I should be satisfied with what I have.

That was yesterday. I wrote it down but never posted it to my blog, because I knew it was incomplete. Now, another night has passed and a new day has arrived. It is still dark, but I have been awake for a long time. I turn to one side, try to sleep, but sleep will not come. I turn to the other side, try to sleep. I have been awake for so long that I am sure that dawn must be near. Sometimes I get to sleep for some short while, then I wake again in the dark. Will this night never end? Finally, exhausted, I look at the clock on the dresser beside the bed. Its glowing digits tell me the time is 3:36AM. 

I get up. I can't continue to lie in bed and try to sleep when sleep will not come. But I have lived this life of insomnia for years. I sit at the computer and I tweak yesterday's writing, then I add this morning's postscript. But this blog post has nowhere to go. It will meet a dead end, as I knew it would all along. 

Now it is 4AM. I will put on my clothes and my shoes and go out for a walk. The temperature is 72°F on this June morning. I hear no rain falling, but it is on the way. I think to myself, "just do it." Just click the Publish button and walk away. Walk away to the outside world and breathe fresh air. Just do it.

A Doctor Visit

I went to see my primary care doctor. It was a 9:15AM appointment, as early as I could get in to see her. She does hospital rounds in the early morning and gets to her office around 9AM.

Her assistant entered the room and took my blood pressure and asked me a few questions about my meds, then she left and the doctor entered. I sat on the exam table. 

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"I feel great," I replied.

"I'm not surprised," she said. "Your lab work shows you're in great health."

"Wonderful," I said.

"But there are a few areas you need to work on," she added.

"Okay."

"First, I recommend you eat more hot dogs ... at least two per day, preferably at lunch time."

"Okay, I can do that," I told her. "What about toppings? Can I eat chili?"

"Yes, eat as much chili on your dogs as possible. Also, I recommend diced onion and a little mustard."

"Okay. What else?"

"Do you eat chocolate bars?"

"Never," I said.

"I recommend that you begin eating at least one a day with lunch."

"Okay. But I'm already overweight. Won't chocolate bars make that worse?"

"No problem," she said. "Science has recently discovered that obesity is good for us. Eat as many sweets as you can."

"I will," I promised.

"Do you drink alcohol?" she asked.

"No," I admitted. "I quit last year."

"I recommend you add daily vodka to your diet, but no more than a half gallon per day."

"I will definitely consider that," I replied.

"And how is your sex life?" she asked.

I was somewhat taken aback. "Well..." I began.

"To be honest with you," she said, "My marriage is falling apart and my sex life sucks. We all need regular sex to be healthy. My clinic has a storage room in back with a bed. Why don't we go there now!" And she grabbed my hand and pulled me off the exam table. This was the best doctor visit ever!

Then the phone on the dresser beside me buzzed and I woke up. 

I got up and stretched. I showered, dressed, left the house, and backed my car out of the garage. I had a 9:15AM doctor appointment. For real.

Contractor Troubles

My neighbor contracted with a company to build a fence across the back of her yard. She asked me if wanted the fence to go all the way to the corner of my garage. My garage is five feet from the property line, so the fence would extend five feet into my yard. I asked her to end the fence at the property line. The fence installers arrived and put up the new fence. They installed the fence—you can probably guess this part—all the way to my garage.

I had a new roof put on my house. It leaked. I called the owner of the roofing company, but he refused to fix the leak. I called the foreman of the crew that had done the work. He promised he would fix the leak, but as it turned out—you can probably guess this part—promising to fix the leak is all he would do.

I asked another roofing company to fix the leak. They tried several times but they only made the leak worse. Then they quit trying.

I asked a third roofer to fix the leak. I paid him $462 and thought the leak was history. But then the rain fell hard and the wind blew, and I had a funny feeling that told me I should go upstairs and peek under the eave and check on that leak. I did and—you can probably guess this part—the roof was leaking in the same place it had been leaking all along.

I called the owner of the company and told him the roof was still leaking. He asked if he could call me back in one minute because he had another call. He promised he’d call back in one minute. I told him okay. The call ended and—you can probably guess this part—he never called back. I didn’t attempt to reach him again. I was pretty sure my call would go directly to voice mail.

I saw a contractor sitting in his truck parked across the street. I walked over and told him I had a simple job for him. He said he couldn’t do it at that time, which was understandable, but he promised he would be back “next week.” He promised two or three times. He gave me his business card, and after he drove away I texted him a reminder. I never saw him again.

I phoned a plumber and, of course, got his answering device. I left my name and number and asked him to return my call. He never called me.

A man who does occasional yard work for me said he knew a man who would definitely do a simple roof repair job for me. My yard guy said the man would call me in 2 weeks. I never heard anything from him. No phone call, nothing.

This kind of thing happens all the time with every company I deal with regardless of size. Whatever happened to “integrity” in this country? Oh, I know. Integrity is something people had in olden days, and this is modern times. “Get with the program, VW. Things like integrity, doing a good job, and keeping your word are so 20th century.”

I know, but what can I say? I’m a 20th century guy.