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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Gnome--
Of the melting snow around me
There was a sainted hermit from the Limousin in France, whose name was Junian and he was of the nobility.
He was a pious lad and walked a very long way to study under ST. Amand, but he arrived late one night and it was thought best not to let him in by the saint, because he did not know this boy, and feared it might be a robber's trick.
Junian spent the night curled up outside in the sage's garden wrapped in his traveling cloak. It began to snow, but God kindly made sure that the snow did not fall on him.
So he had a good night's sleep and the next day the misunderstanding was cleared up.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Far from any good?
You value your values too much.
go with the crow
Beethoven did.And he was deaf as well as a terrible speller.
[Click to View YouTube Video]Beethoven wrote it in 1811 to accompany a play (by August von Kotzebue).
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Great images and music! Thank you!
MFM, thank you for the info. I am reassured. :) And the story of sleeping in the snow warmed my spirit.
Which is good, because it's chilly out there this morning, and my studio is very chilly, since I forgot to leave the heat on and it was below freezing last night. I have turned on the heat again. Winter is still with us.
But I love the beautiful new snow on the ground. I think there are a couple of inches, white and cold, decorating the ponderosa pines with white accents on the dark green needles, softening the contours of the stones of my medicine wheel, and dusting the fruit trees into dark etchings against a white canvas of snow. There are no birds singing this morning. I am sure they are all hunkered down, in their down, against the cold. Time to go fill their feeders. There were twenty-three pygmy nuthatches mobbing the sunflower feeder yesterday, and several downy and hairy woodpeckers chipping away at the suet. This morning, so far, it is very quiet.
feralfae
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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Janis for ya.[Click to View YouTube Video]
I promised a TR based on my "haitus" from the Talko, but it's edited down some to a long dairy page.
I've got coffee goin' and hope you have a good goddam mornin'. First I gotta go milk the weasels...takes a few minutes.
Have some more Janis, why dontcha?[Click to View YouTube Video]
Dairy entry for 3/24/15.
I’m all alone and it’s dark.
My internet connection is off for a week or so,
for non-payment of last month’s obscene bill.
This is like having a vacation and
I’m isolated, in a wilderness or a city,
but I am whatever or wherever I want to be,
because I’m imagining it all...imagine that.
And you’re welcome to join me:
you won’t have to cook, carry, or fetch—
I sure don’t expect to have to do that mundane scene.
I don’t like the idea that I’m talking only to myself:
but by having a silent partner like you
I can’t help but take responsibility for us both
because I’m only imagining you accompanying me;
any comments or difficulties you may have
can be settled by simply talking to my hand.
(Whatever that means, it’s a proven tagline
and Arnold can sue me if he disapproves of my use.)
Wherever we’re bound, rest assured that
I’ll be taking many-many pictures:
I have the time;
and it helps pass the time--
photography is a great hobby.
I’ve learned to drag along my camera and my tripod
when I head most anywhere, real or imagined—
hell, I’d take them to church, did I attend.
Sometimes I awaken and think that I’m on the computer:
I’ll start clicking through pictures and editing them
and then it comes to me that they are not saving themselves--
I’m not really experiencing what I thought.
Is this a dangerous practice?
So far I’ve not suffered is all I can say:
you are in no danger, trust me--
it’s just a trick of my subconscious mind,
cheap manipulation of visual imagined images,
which may or may not be “art,”
but it is what it is and who are we to judge the indefinable?
I’m just the guide, not your Dada:
If t here is danger, be advised, if you are not already,
That I’m “not rich,” which may be the same as “poor,”
--yet another judgment of a subjective nature--
so if you want to sue,
should there be injury or fault,
be my guest--which you are anyway--
but don’t be a prick about it
because you won’t get one red cent no matter what.
This morning I went to visit the vampire lady
at the VA Clinic and she drew some blood:
there is an “art” to phlebotomy,
and she has my veins mapped like the USGS.
Her name is Marcie, a sweetheart.
And then the doctor saw me,
and I saw him,
and we talked about my health,
the upcoming surgery to close my hernia
(which he decided to postpone),
and motorcycles.
Won’t go into that but to say it was the first negative of the day
finding that I need to wait even longer for the knife.
The second negative (yes, these are intended puns on photography)
was that by the time I got home my knees hurt really bad.
But I took two pain relief tabs and felt much better:
I also decided that the hernia is not really all that terrible--
the pain is slight and intermittent (though I’d like to be more active)
and so I just need to be patient about becoming an outpatient.
Windy weather today here out of the north but not cold.
I rode the bus out to the clinic:
the senior fare is six bits, a deal, a steal, but still not a free ride;
and I hauled along the bike for the return trip.
While on the bus I met an 84-year old gent who is a retired farm worker.
He had a lot to say—he’s a navy vet, worked in the fields his whole life,
knew Cesar C, was a member of the UFW, but quit when they burned the fields.
He reminded me of someone...can’t really pin it down.
He said his name was RA Young:
he said to call him RAY
and he loved canning chilies and PICKLES
just as much as like I obviously loved to make photographs;
and that’s weird because my doctor, Dr. Paul Love,
LOVES MOTORSICKLES
and photos of them, too.
Really, that’s the truth:
Doc has one very good photo in his examining room,
of a motorcycle racer, and it’s a good one. It’s alone on one blank wall.
Outside in the halls are scenic shots which I’ve shown before--
the “Bronson Bridge” on Highway One a ways south of Carmel is one.
I asked him if he was a motorcyclist because a doctor in Fresno at the VA Hospital
told me that Doc Love would much rather talk about motorcycles than one’s health issues.
I put that put-down of Paul to the test: the Fresno physician
had been awfully close to the mark.
Doc revealed that the photograph that I admired was of himself leaning into the turn.
I felt like a snitch, prodding him like that, but also like a fisherman:
So I threw out some more bait, gettin’ all “chummy,”
and I told him that my wife Liz
had been the local Modified Motorcycle Association’s chapter manager for years.
And so then he began telling me of his history with bikes:
He used to ride in races and he still rides to work on occasion,
but he has been in three or four wrecks on the track.
The last time he really messed up a finger
so he’s no longer racing.
Helmet laws came up: Deaths from motorcycle accidents, he related,
have dropped (like one-third!) since the law came into effect in the early nineties.
It was a very unpopular idea among the MMA and other rough-and-ready clubs.
But as Doc says: Only idiots don’t wear helmets.
Interjecting a story the Rev laid on me on Monday, March 30, day after his birthday, here,
about his sister Julie.
Not too long ago she was riding in a pack on her racing bike in Livermore Valley
(she’s no idiot—she was wearing her brain-bucket)
when some anomaly in the pavement caused her to fly up and over the handlebars,
landing her on her helmet.
“Ouch,” you say?
Her pretty face is now much like Jaybro’s was,
but with two black eyes.
She also broke BOTH arms.
And all you can say is, “Ouch?”
She can’t wipe her ass, has to sit in chairs where it’s easy to stand up with no hands,
and is likewise limited in many other ways,
dependent on the help she can get.
She can’t feed herself, type on the internet (AWFUL!), or use a pencil.
Moral of the story: BIKE RIDING IS DANGEROUS!
HELMETS SAVE LIVES!
But you knew that...
I asked Doc Love, did he know Skip Johnson? and Doc said yeah.
So then I asked did he know CO Williams? and Doc said he’d met him
but had not raced him—they rode different classes of bikes in racing.
CO and I were neighbors growing up.
Skip is a mutual friend of CO and myself.
Both of them own several bikes of different types and vintage.
But this is the kicker:
both of them know Throwpie and PeggyLeggy.
Then Doc got down to work on his computer for ten minutes:
He ordered me a Rx for Lasix, saying that he’d rather see me get more labs
after I’d been on it a while
(to be on the safe side but he didn’t say that)
and to come see him in a month.
Meanwhile, I have to get an EKG and am supposed to go to Fresno to do that,
and I will have to go back to see the same doctor there as I did last week one more time,
but I think I’ll combine the two, but that’s not to be decided yet.
All I know is that I won’t have to go to Fresno again this month.
An update as of March 30: I have one appointment with Doc Love on April 20
and one in Fresno on April 28 for the EKG.
If all is “well,” I’ll have surgery scheduled shortly following that.
Back to the ride home from the VA Clinic in Merced:
I stopped at Merced High on G St. and took a few pics of trees and a crow in the wind.
The ubiquitous Tommy T. came wheeling up behind me.
Not so strange running into him like that as he shows up everyplace
and knows everyone, including RAY, who he says is really “CS.”
“Si, yes?”
“That’s what I said, you joker.”
A brief bit more of chit-chat and he went on his way.
I then headed down G Street, where I stopped to look
at the underside of the G St. Bridge on Bear Creek,
or what there is left of Bear Creek due to the drought.
It’s dry as a bone but for a “pondle” just above it:
A pondle being bigger than a puddle but smaller than a pond--
were it an alpine setting, it might be termed a “tinitarn.”
Downstream from the bridge is a larger stretch of shallow water.
There was a lone egret in it.
I had lots of shots of it but all were out of focus but one.
It may not have been an egret, but it was white and had long legs.
I set up the tripod and made a couple of photos of the creek:
There was just one guy sitting next to his bicycle reading a paperback and eating a bag lunch.
A pair of riders came riding by on bikes on the bike path leading under the bridge.
And there were several other birds down there beneath the roadway.
Swallows’ nests don’t exactly abound down there in the shade of the bridge,:
I’ve seen them lots of other places outside of town and up in Mariposa County
where every inch of space is occupied by mud nests.
There are just a couple of dozen nests under the G St. Bridge.
It’s not exactly the Chinatown of the swallow world under the bridge:
It’s more like a Hooverville of the homeless.
I shot no shots of the junk that the homeless have left under the bridge--
the upper tier is a hidden eyesore.
I left the tripod behind where I’d set it up:
I started looking for good angles on some other small birds,
moving upstream from the bridge in the drying muck,
balancing on chunks of concrete and asphalt,
using just my hands and feet but wishing for a ski pole or stave all the same,
knowing full well that I should probably be wearing a helmet,
but I was being an idiot.
BIRDWATCHING CAN BE DANGEROUS!
WATCH THE BIRDIES AT YOUR OWN RISK!
I took several shots of one swallow trying to swallow an insect--
at least I think it was a swallow.
Then I got a look at a hawk, maybe a redtail, but I don’t know.
I don’t know birds’ names much.
I’m better with clouds: Cyrus, Nimbus, Calmyoulownumbis, and Anne Ville.
I managed to get a couple of decent shots of that hawk,
but the bird was almost directly above me
and they came out much lighter than they ought to have been.
Plus, I was afraid of getting hawk-shat.
And I wasn’t wearing a helmet.
But neither was the hawk.
I went to the library next day, the 25th, and got the Sibley Bird Book.
I still haven’t identified the hawk but can ID the book just fine.
3/26 happened slow and uneventful, but the Prudential sent my $34.50 pension check.
I cashed out $40 from checking and went to the store this morning,
bought some food, came home, ate some food, went to sleep,
woke, ate some more food, went to sleep,
woke, ate some more food and took some pics of the end of the day.
And then rSin called: I’m talking him into coming to the Facelift this fall.
He is doin’ like I’m doin’, hangin’ in.
He has his horror story of hernia surgery, much worse than my story.
He makes me feel like a pussy.
I’ve finished the Apaloosa story and have a Jack Reacher novel going.
The 29th is my mom’s birthday and Jeff’s and Nana and Grandad’s.
The redbud should be blooming in the Merced Canyon right now, maybe the poppies, too.
I used to gather a bundle on the way down to Merced to celebrate her day.
*sigh*
Oh, for lost days...
APOLOGY FOR AN UNINTERESTING LIFE
Sitting in the breeze from the window
Egging on thoughts only half-thought
I notice in a picture of the flag down below
There are abrasions on the pole which are wrought
By metal clasps which secure the flags to the rope.
Each groove reaches around either side of the pole
Which doesn’t seem to be worse for the action of the wind
But over some interval of time this action will weaken it
But probably not before several sets of clasps
Are worn out in the process.
My body has aged in a similar way
The aches and the pains I’ve noticed each day
Have gradually caused the erosion of me
The old me is gone a new me is now
And I wonder what became of the old me
I’m locked up in my memories
Along with others—some are dead--
They and I are locked forevermore up in my head
And maybe I could bring them out to share
Except for one thing--a new thing
I won’t because personal history is now proscribed
No one cares that they’ve all died--
For there is no one left to care--
And I’m the one left here and now it’s heaven
With no one to bother with and no one to account to or for
“All” alone I sit and draw with a stick in the dirt
Pictures which show all the love and the hurt
Of a misspent youth and a misspent maturity
From two marriages two grade sixes
And several presidential elections and energy crises
Throw in the daily rumors of war
The sunrises and sunsets I’ve seen
The newspapers read and the books checked out
And the things looked into and the things done without
It all adds up to a simple box score and nothing more
It is as impersonal and uninteresting a history as it could be
Documented facts with no humanity attached
And no clue as to what happens at the end
No foreshadowing but with some foreshortening
And in plain old black and white
But I don’t mean to sound negative
Because there is always tomorrow, Scarlett
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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fae,
thanks.
You put me to shame, as does TT, with your knowledge of our avian friends.
I love your verbal "photos," just as good as anyone's anywhere.
This is today. Just less than five minutes ago.
They say there'll be a lunar eclipse the 4th of April.
This was the Lady Selene early this morning when I woke up.
St. Junian, please whisper in His ear and ask for snow.
"No snow for you, California!"--the snow nazi
I'm heading across the street to the Cinema Cafe for an El Capitan omelet.
Chow, baby!
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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Wow what a colorful shot, Tastes like chicken?
For some that flying thing is no joy to behold at any range.
As you know wanna buy a duck has a ring to it !
also my family chore for twenty years included ridding roof tops of pigeons, poop and all.
A thankless 'lob job' that you can not pay anyone to do.
that was still on the calendar for this spring, now rescheduled for the fall.
Woe will I be, if the carcass duty falls to me - do ya' follow me 'honey?
it would be a sweet spot to be in prison with all the trappings but reduced to the town slum dwelling,
land lord of the same slums, was a very ugly 'Big House" with no upside and no parole.
Cleaning roof tops , striking nets and yankin' nests was gross work, enough.
man kind.
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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I have to say I'm trying to grab a clip of that shitt I was a stand-in for my boy there, He does represent!!
I don't surf as zb will confirm. although I have form,
`the small one is at the elementary school, the full size town mascot is next to the Bar and family beach.
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujò de la Playa
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I always wondered, but this guy was kind enough to identify them for me.
A strange fact many of you may not know. I went to my brother's doctor once and he told me I had a hernia and scheduled me for immediate surgery.
I didn't go. Strangely enough my hernia apparently operated on itself, since it never has bothered me since. I do not recommend this doctor to anyone though.
Then again, maybe it's just on hiatus.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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All images from the internest...
I would like to vacation in Haitus:
Though it's a poor country it's history is about as old as the idea of a NEW WORLD.
But no fish tacos, s'il vous plait.
Doctor Duvalier hated fish tacos.
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujò de la Playa
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Chicken Snake (not the band)
Two-headed Ostrich Snake
It's not a dog eat dog world afterall (can I get that taco to go?)
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujò de la Playa
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The Grateful Dead - Workingman's Dead (1970) - Album Cover Location
1199 Evans Avenue - Hunter's Point - San Francisco
How do I know? This guy who is apparently not rich, but still quite persistent told me. The Flames or Dead thread? It's a toss up, may have to hock my sailor suit to get that coin.
http://www.popspotsnyc.com/workingmans_dead/
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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taken just minutes agostill i do love to go with the crow, ah . . . Ravern.&
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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A Hawk by any name still likes street skating.There's a new breed in town: the parropigeon.This is a pigeon which is equipped to live in actual trees, not just on rocks or buildings. Like the parrots and macaws and toucans.
I'd put this on the Birds thread, but certain rock 'n' roll stars might object.
[Click to View YouTube Video]I think Gnome's moon shot looks like some kind of egg.
Almost eggsackley.
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zBrown
Ice climber
Brujò de la Playa
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Bird in the hand? Some folks just like to show off. Poor birds, apparently living from hand to mouth.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
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I loved this video.
The King sings the Beatles.
The Beatles cover the King's greatest hits.
Elvis reviews "Help."
Ringo reviews "Blue Hawaii."
[Click to View YouTube Video]
http://lyrics.elvispresley.com.au/lyrics/its_only_love.html
The "official" lyrics and music of "It's ONLY Love" by Mark James and Steve Tyrell do not include the Bob Dylan lyrics gratuitously introduced into the track by whoever was responsible.
Now we know.
The accepted story is that Tricky Dick privately laughed up his sleeve when Elvis came to him swearing to war on hippies and drugs and commies, etc.
But he was a crook.
Who's laughing now?[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Gnome Ofthe Diabase
climber
Out Of Bed
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I know this is jarring but it came up in my search for Old Crow[Click to View YouTube Video]The one i like, (frm' da' album that is all good) [Click to View YouTube Video]although, like I said, the whole thing is throwback thursday worthy Now Before Ron A. sees that I am not out risking life and limb spreading chalk every where I go, i will add that a sixtyfive degree day has shaped up to be quite nice
So See you to nite and late to... Pics o I hope..
SOGO WITH THE CROW
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feralfae
Boulder climber
in the midst of a metaphysical mystery
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Gnome, it is beautiful but looks more like a Raven to me. But then, I am partial to Ravens.
ff
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