Ben Mears And Rob Lowe

 

Preston Castle Wall

Ione, California

May 7th 2022

Minolta

"There comes a time in your life when you have to choose to turn the page, write another book or simply close it."

 

~Shannon L. Alder

 

Preston Castle

Ione, California

Nope, not closing the book yet. Well, maybe the Twitter book, but that remains to be seen (see history). What do I mean by see history? Well, Elon Musk... the jerk... is trying to manipulate the price of the stock, and he has already said he would reinstate Trump, and you know how I feel about that, and I am not alone. Some of this shit is already firmly planted in history. The deal may not happen. We will see. If it does goes through, history will have a lot to say about it. 

 

But meanwhile back in the present. 

 

I'm not closing any doors either. I'm working on my health. Covid forced a giant detox of my eating habits. Before Covid, I ordered lean meat on my sandwiches, sliced extra thin, served with a jar of mayonnaise. Now, mayo is pretty much verboten. I can't tolerate mayonnaise, or anything oily. No fries. No jalapeno poppers. No mozzarella sticks, but there is some super healthy stuff I can't handle either. I can't have spinach, or lettuce, or any other leafy stuff like cilantro. Weird. I LOVE salad, always have. I am a veggie girl. But since Covid, I get a queasy stomach from it. Sigh.

 

I can't do much about most of it, but ride it out and hope it all goes back to normal one day, but I'm done with fucking waiting, I am taking lead and jump starting the process. Dr. Williams gave me a guide for kicking my sense of smell and taste back in. I purchased an aromatherapy machine. The sense of smell and taste go hand and hand. The idea is to choose a scent, and retrain my body to recognize it. Hopefully it will help my sense of taste if I use the same formula. I also purchased a sound machine to maybe help me get my body retrained to some healthy sleeping habits.

 

I can do this.

 

As for the mental exhaustion, again it's a matter of closing the last chapter on what happened last autumn, by closing the storage room. Hubby and I will be cleaning out the last of it next week, and that will be that. The door will be shut, with four months left on our contract at our current home. Hopefully Eric, the owner, will renew our lease, and I can take a little longer to recover, without another move. I'm trying to not think about it. I'm good right now. There is a roof over my head. I am relatively safe. And I am about to buy an air fryer to help me get back into the swing of cooking. I miss baking too. Alan has pretty much been doing everything since my breakdown, the poor man is well trained in being married to a nutjob. Sorry, chronically depressed person.

 

But he knows I eventually get back up, and I guess I will again this time too. What choice do I have? Suicide will always be sitting there, reminding me of it's availability, but, well, you know. Robin. I am trying really hard to not give up this time, in that I came so close to going though with it last fall. I have so much that I haven't shared about what has got me to this place, but as we move along I am sure the details will make themselves known. I just need to process things and go from there.

 

Now, about the "Lowe" in the title of this post. It refers to Rob Lowe. You might remember I posted about his visit to the Central Valley, when he filmed the first episode of, The Lowe Files, back in 2019. His love of the supernatural lead him to film the first episode at Preston Castle, in Ione, and that helped me find something to enjoy out here. I struggled in the first few years, as there isn't a lot to see, and photograph in and around Stockton. But Preston Castle changed all that. As did the town of Ione, Ca. The castle itself is mighty spooky and at the same time glorious. Like all truly spooky places it has a deeply troubled past, which intrigued me. In the next few years I photographed it many times over. And there is a very photogenic graveyard nearby and one of my favorite autumn trees to feature every year in my autumn leaf project, sits nearby in a small park and ride near the creek. 

 

I'm still grateful to Mr. Lowe, he will never know it, but he helped me heal. I experienced a lot of pain between 2015 and 2019 when he visited here. Because of his visit, I was interested about something again, and even slightly amused about how Preston Castle could have easily served as Hubie Marsten's house from Stephen King's, Salem's Lot, that Rob Lowe starred in. It's easy to pretend it was Ben Mears who visited here, and let my child's mind take over for a bit. Are there really ghosts roaming around among us? Perhaps. Are there vampires sleeping in an eerie house on a nearby hill? I don't know where they sleep, but I can say without a doubt that yes, there are vampires among us. That's what's got me to where I am right now.

 

Damn those vampires.

But Thank you, Ben Mears and Rob Lowe. 

 

"But when fall comes, kicking summer out on it's treacherous ass, as it always does one day sometime after the mid point of September, it stays awhile like an old friend who you have missed." 

 

~Stephen King

Salem's Lot

 

You might recall that this is my 

favorite quote to begin autumn with. 

 

 

Memento Mori

"All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person's (or things's) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt."

~Susan Sontag

Memento Mori

(Remember You Must Die)

It's time to close 2018. It's so strange how every year has the same amount of days, with the exception of leap years, and yet each year can seem to defy reason and science, by appearing to go by faster or slower than what the calendar says. That's always been a true phenomenon, but never like the last few years. There is time and then there is Trump Time. Trump Time... where days seem like months, and months seem like years.

Trump time is exhausting, and kinda scary. I feel myself aging at a much different rate, but then again, maybe I am just feeling my age more as I grow older. I am not sure how I will feel when this mess is finally over with, and I am not even sure it will ever be over with, so all I can do, is the best I can do, to hold onto my sanity, and thank God that my camera helps me do just that! It helps me process what needs to be felt and done to move forward with life.

In looking through my photos for 2018, I found I had a lot more good days with the camera, than bad. This year was eye opening, in many ways, but nothing was more eye opening than having a Stockton Police officer, knock on your door, LOUDLY, at 7:30 AM, as they chased two carjacking suspects through your backyard and into your pool house! SHIT! At first, I thought it might be the Secret Service, pounding on my door, because of some mistaken remark I made online, led to an investigation of me for threatening the president! Had I gone and done it this time? Had I finally been too damn mouthy on Twitter? Was that third time calling the president a SHITGIBBON going too far? Was this, finally, my arrest?

It, of course, wasn't, but I can imagine the day that it could be that happening. Not that I go around threatening Trump, but what's in my head doesn't matter, it's how he chooses to interpret things, that matters, right? That's another scary, surreal thought, that anything that one says online, could be used against them in such a frightening way. I had to be dead, because everything was just surreal! It made for a bad day, but that day was a necessary evil, because that scary day finally got it through to me that I wasn't dead, and that everything happening in the world was, indeed, real. Including a carjacking suspect, hiding out in my pool house!

You see, that had been my assumption, since before Donald Trump became president, but especially after he took the oath of office! Every single day of his presidency has rolled from one surreal day, to the next, each filled with one FRESH HELL, after another. So one day, in a fit of exasperation, I said out loud to myself... "When did I die?" I felt in that moment that life had become so surreal, that I couldn't possibly be alive! And I went forth with that delusion until that fateful day, the carjackers went through my backyard!

Great! I'm alive. All This Is Real!

Well, autumn and vacation came around, about four and six weeks later, respectively, and it was time to pick up the camera again, for both my sanity, but for the love of all things autumn, which traditionally includes the annual cascade of leaves, our anniversary and our vacation. I couldn't have an autumn where I didn't search out leaves for my project,  and I felt like if I did skip a year, that it seemed like I would be giving up. I am not quite at that point yet, but I get tired, often, and just want to walk away and never look back! Stick my head into a book, and not come out. 

Never watch another news/political analysis show again. Never go back to Twitter. Never engage in the real world again, but I know I couldn't do that. Sometimes I feel stuck in reality, a place where being aware of life is a good thing, but in this case, is the last place I would ever want to be thinking straight. Fantasy, for too long a time isn't healthy. Reality, especially now, definitely isn't healthy for too long a period of time, unfortunately, that doesn't leave much time.

I guess photography is my best vehicle for surfing fantasy and reality. I did some photos this year that I really care about. Most of them done during autumn, but certainly not exclusively. I am going to try to do some kind of photography, at least once a week this year. It can be difficult to find the right subjects, so I am going to attempt some artsy photos of average, if not mundane, subjects around the house. If Andy Warhol can make art out of a soup can, why can't I?

 What I Saw In 2018...

In No Particular Order

Military Submarine Outlook Station 

Circa WWII

HWY 1 South of San Francisco

October 24th, 2018

The "Bijou"

Our home theater, finally finished.

July 15th, 2018

Rare Mammatus Cloud Formation

And A UFO?

December 24th, 2018

Stockton, California

There's No Mail, Like Snow Mail

Camino, California

March 2nd, 2018

My Favorite Autumn Leaf Portrait

November 17th 2018

Stockton, California

Beware Of Snakes In A Cemetery

Ione Public Cemetery

Ione, California

 October 24th, 2018

My Favorite Book Of 2018

"Fear" By Bob Woodward

Dippin Dots

Cannery Row

Monterey California 

October 17th 2018

My Favorite Autumn Sunset

October 24th, 2018

Ione, California

My Favorite Black And White Photo

June 10th, 2018

Stockton, California

My Favorite Leaf Of The Day

"Fleur-Di-Lis"

December 9th, 2018

Stockton, California

My Favorite Public Art Piece

"Peace" By Stephen Kaltenberg

 October 21st, 2018

Sacramento, California

My Favorite Church Photograph

Ione Catholic Cemetery

Ione, California

October 25th 2018

My Favorite Cemetery Photograph

Ione Public Cemetery

Ione, California

October 25th, 2018

 
Angel Monument

Ione Public Cemetery

Ione, California

October 25th 2018

The Old Frosty

Ione, California

August 25th, 2018

Blue Bunting

September 2nd 2018

Davenport, California

 Early Winter Sunset

December 24th 2018

Stockton, California

"Incoming"

Pacific Grove, California

October 17th, 2018

Art Deco Glass Panel

The Orinda Theater

October 11th, 2018

Orinda, California

Smoke From The Camp Fire (Paradise, California)

 Turned The Moon An Eerie Shade Of Red

A Bright Red Glow OF The Sun, Filtered With Smoke From The Camp Fire, Reflecting OFF The Bricks Of Preston Castle

November 11th, 2018

Ione, California

Happy Independence Day 

July 4th, 2018

Stockton, California

Open Window

October 24th 2018

Lockeford, California

And there you have it! The year 2018 in photographs. On to yet another year, but hopefully, the new year will bring a lot more good news, than bad, and maybe even some clarity and hope. You just never know what will be waiting for you. Maybe I will take my best photograph ever! Or perhaps I will be in the right/wrong place at the right/wrong time to capture an image that will be something truly unique or historic! Or maybe I will just continue to photograph things I love, and just try to make it through another year of my life. It's all good. But, I am reminded daily of, Memento Mori.

It's Life.

Happy New Year

2019

~Mood: Quiet

~Me :)

Twilight In The Cemetery

"Twilight, even remembered twilight,

 is better than no light at all."

~China Mieville

Ione Public Cemetery

500 Church Street

Ione, California

October 28th 2018

Back in October, I had planned to begin a new series, Cemeteries. I did one post, which featured the Ione Catholic cemetery, which also contained a lovely little chapel. Well, the day I photographed that cemetery, I also took some photos of a cemetery across the street. I decided to put the rest of my photographs on hold, after the devastating wildfire took place in Paradise, California. It just didn't seem like the right time to begin such a dark subject. After all, I can add to this series at any time during the year, so there was nothing time sensitive about it. I used to be a little frightened of cemeteries, but with maturity, came a different attitude completely.

 I began to think of all the history of those who are resting there. They all lived lives, so they all must have plenty to say about the times they lived in. Ione, for example, has had Their challenges. Their embrace of the times, or conversely, the things they rejected. What was their politics like? What was their social culture like? What was it like during the Gold Rush days, and what was it like to have the jazz musician, Dave Brubeck, be it's most famous son? Is Preston Castle/School of Industry, actually haunted? But I am not so sure I wanted an answer to that question! Not here anyway!

 All questions I will never know just by visiting the grave sites, but at the same time, by looking at the dates on the monuments, there is a point of history that can be researched. Plus, there is a quiet, calming thought about passing through an example of where I will call home one day. If I have my way, I will be cremated and scattered in the San Francisco Bay, or at least off the Marin County coastline, but I got a good vibe from this cemetery, well, except for the spooky Preston Castle, staring down on the cemetery, as if it is watching it, and the sign warning visitors to "beware of rattlesnakes."

 I don't think I have ever seen that kind of sign in a cemetery before, and it makes me wonder if anyone was killed by a rattlesnake, while visiting a loved one? Anyway, if my first choice is not obtainable, at least there is a cemetery, not too far away, that has some amazing autumn trees! All I ask is for a few autumn trees to drop a few leaves over me, and I am good to go! But not right now... lol... sometime a long time from now. Maybe sometime after I photograph Wyatt Earp's grave site, in Colma, California or maybe the Black Dahlia's (Elizabeth Short) resting place in Oakland. Morbid? Or is it simply history? Maybe a little of both? Anyway, I am attempting to show the beauty of cemeteries, and not the sorrow.

And now the autumn Leaf Of The Day...

#69 Leaf Of The Day

November 29th 2018

Photographed October 11th 2018

Tilden Park

Little Farm

Berkeley, California

~Mood: Quiet

~Me

A Face In The Crowd: Preston Castle

"Normal is an illusion. What's normal for the spider

 is chaos for the fly." 

~Morticia Adams

That beautiful Romanesque building is Preston Castle, in the small city of Ione, California. It is rumored to be haunted, and I believe the stories of cries, strange sounds and moans are real, and from the ghosts who live there now. It was once a boys reformatory, where young boys were sent, from all around the state, to serve sentences for various crimes, or sometimes when they had simply been made wards of the court. 

Terrible abuses took place at this prison, the unthinkable really, and it is said now that the spirits of these children haunt the halls and rooms of Preston Castle, as does a nurse who was murdered there. Alan and I paid a visit to the place about a week ago, and let me tell you, while we didn't go in, just standing on the grounds and looking up at the main building gave me the shivers! It is quite eerie and imposing.

Sometime, maybe next year, Alan and I should sign up for one of their October ghost tours. I didn't prepare for it in time this year to get a reservation in, but I have always wanted to go on a ghost hunt, so you can bet I will be trying for next year! I believe in ghosts, and I have had more than one experience with the paranormal. Actually, I hate that word "paranormal" it has such a negative association. 

Paranormal simply means we haven't discovered why certain things, that don't seem to belong in the natural world, somehow do. Science just needs a little while longer to figure it out, but with so many other things to work on, like cancer, and climate change, other diseases, and all the other things that benefit the living, the research continues, but the supernatural and paranormal, understandably, need to take a back seat. I suppose the dead can wait!

 But boy would I like to be there when a definite connection is made between the living and spirits or ghosts. Irrefutable proof of the existence of ghosts, would make me feel a lot better about some of the experiences I have had, since childhood, that you wouldn't believe me about, if I described them to you in exact detail! But its okay... I know they happened. And one day... I can say, yep, I knew it was true! I did see a ghost that day!

 The castle is kinda spooky, and I always feel a little sad when I look at it, thinking about how those children were abused and hurt, but the grounds around the building are beautiful, and quite pleasant. This tree lines the road leading away from the castle, towards the exit of the property. Beautiful trees, and lots of birds. If one didn't realize the past this places has, it might just seem like a beautiful place to hold a party, maybe even a wedding! But was we came to the end of the driveway, Alan glanced out the window and noticed this...

The long rock wall that lines the property, is a gorgeous mix of different rocks, but on the last group, was one particular rock that seems, well, to show a ghostly face! I know... it's just a rock, and I know that seeing faces, where there are none, is a phenomenon called Paredolia. I even have a whole album of "faces" that I have photographed over the years, called "A Face In The Crowd!" Everyone sees them from time to time, but the other day, when we saw this one, I got a chill down my spine! It was downright spooky to have chills, in 85 degree heat!

Tell me, have you ever seen a ghost? Or thought you had?

 #22 Leaf Of The Day

October 22nd 2017

Cull Canyon, California

 

"Maybe before you die, it's your ghost you see."

~Lauren Oliver 

Mood: Curious

~Me :)

An Autumnal Afternoon

"A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes; the leaves falling like our years, the flowers fading like our hours,

 the clouds fleeting like our illusions,

 the light diminishing like our intelligence,

 the sun frowning colder like our affections,

 the rivers becoming frozen like our lives...

 all bear secret relations to our destinies."

~Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand

Memoires d' Outre-Tombe

 

Alan and I took a drive yesterday, to enjoy the beautiful late autumn sun, and we enjoyed the journey very much! Saturday was the third day of vacation, and while we still have most of a month to go, things haven't gotten off to the best start! For one, on his last day of work, 2 hours before he was due to leave for the day, he was told he had to work over, for the men that had been chose to man the road closures at the North Bay fires! Frustrating, but more than understandable! Then on Friday, my back was killing me because I had gotten very little sleep, due to Dylan's meowing all morning... LOUDLY! That kitty does not suffer in silence. If things aren't just perfect... he will let you know about it!

So, that meant Saturday was our first chance to get out, and enjoy the beauty of a late afternoon drive in autumn. We chose as our destination, the small town of Ione, California, which is at the farthest end of the Central Valley, in Amador County. The town is known as the "Gateway To The Motherlode." I find Ione fascinating, because not only is it a rustic old west town, but it has a rich history, and it just so happens it has one of the most haunted landmarks not just in California, but indeed, America!

The spooky, Gothic Preston Castle, which was at one time, a boys reformatory! The castle has been featured on many television shows about the paranormal, most recently The Low Files, on A&E! I first visited the area last year, but I have planned a longer post about that later in the month, and what sparked my interest in going back for a visit this year. It's kind of a funny story, and I will share it in the coming weeks, right now it's all about the first real autumn photos for this year, and of course, the leaves! But stay tuned, there is a lot more to come!

#15 Leaf Of The Day

Ione, California

October 15th 2017

Mood: Happy

~Me :)