Weekend Escapes

 

"Saturday's the world that's better place again."

~Golden Flower

I'm taking a few days off. No recipe. No odd political word of the week on Sunday. I want a little time reading, and birding, and batting. Yes, the bats are back, and I will have photos on Monday! We went out Thursday night and enjoyed a really nice night of the first flying of the bats for 2026! As a result I have 25 individual bites from assorted creatures, mosquitos in particular, which need treating. 

OUCH!

 So, enjoy your Saturday and Sunday! See you in a couple days.

Autumn In Yosemite

Half Dome Outlook

Yosemite National Park

 

"The magic of autumn has seized the countryside; now that the sun isn't ripening anything it shines for the sake of the golden age; for the sake of Eden; to please the moon for all I know."

~Elizabeth Coatsworth

Personal Geography: Almost An Autobiography

The head noise the last few days has been deafening. The noise from the political talking heads... has... been... deafening. Social media has been deafening. Life noise in general has been deafening! Alan and I needed a day of quiet. A day seeing new horizons. A day that was as far away from the fighting as we could get, so we picked a California destination we hadn't been to before. We chose Half Dome, in the Yosemite Valley. Not surprisingly, we weren't alone! There were many people, not really talking, they were just doing what we were doing, photographing the unbelievable natural beauty of our surroundings!

Truly, all the photos I have ever seen of Half Dome, have not done it justice, and I didn't manage to capture it's stunning beauty as accurately as I wish I could have. I guess I have lost a bit of my creative magic. I'm trying, but I am still dealing with yet one more broken heart in my life, and it's just going to take a while to find my inner happiness again. Personally, I have had my heart broken enough times that I know there is no rushing this process, the best I can hope for is that one day I will wake up, and it won't hurt anymore. It's a one day at a time process. But everything starts somewhere, and yesterday I began the healing at Half Dome!

Just quiet amazing beauty. So needed. So appreciated!

 Leaf Of The Day

November 11th 2016

Mood: Quiet

~Me :) 

Yep, Still Alive, But...

"Politicians are people who,

 when they see the light at the end of the tunnel,

 they go out and buy more tunnel."

~John Quinton

Donald Trump For President? Huh? Last summer when I heard he was ready to run for president, I was kind of shocked, then I laughed, rolled my eyes and said... "Yes! Finally something is going right! This should be highly entertaining! At the time, I was in a crappy hotel room in Turlock, California, which isn't terribly surprising, because Turlock, California, is one big crap heap! If you visit there, the three sights you will see most often are, rednecks, and their tank topped significant others, cockroaches, and cows. Occasionally you might also encounter hairy spiders the size of a redneck's fist, but I am told that is somewhat of a rarity. The day I encountered one, I was told that the particular type of spider I encountered mostly live in trees. Great... a tree dwelling spider. Fun. I wondered if it could fly, and then for the next couple weeks always wore a hat when venturing out of the hotel room.LOL. Like Donald Trump's run for the presidency, after the initial shock and fear wore off, it eventually became funny. I can laugh now, but at the time it was high drama!

Fast forward to the present. I have a fun memory I can relive and share here on Ellipsis, and that makes me happy. I like having a blog. I like to share things with you. I like it when you leave your opinions on things I talk about. I really do. I must because as of next August, I will have been blogging 13 years! We are in an election year, a national election year, which is exciting to me because I am a hopeless political nerd! I love reading about politics, studying it's history, and I even enjoy reading about politicians biographies. I like finding out why things happen, not that there is always an answer, but sometimes if I can just get a little insight I feel better about things. You know what I mean?

Well, I have spent a lot of time doing just that! So much so that I have caused myself some nerve damage in my right hand from Carpal Tunnel syndrome. The doctor says I need to spend less time obsessing on Sarah Palin and more time resting my hand or the damage will a permanent condition. My right hand is numb most of the time now, and when it isn't it has pain shooting up to my shoulder, and I did it to myself. But jeeze... how am I supposed to NOT make fun of that snowbeast Sarah Palin? Since she hit the national political stage she has made me cringe, and when I take it too seriously, I have to let it out! And now, after Donald Trump promised her a position in his administration, should he win, I am less amused with her, and more frightened that it might actually happen! Yikes. She is amusing, but more than anything, she is dangerous and it really isn't funny, so I need to talk about it, even if no one agrees with me, or visits my blog.

So, I have to take some real time off from online activities, when I hand tries to heal yet again. I am taking my doctors advice and giving the blogging a rest. I am going to take my pal Jeff's idea and look into Dragon speech software. And I have decided to post to my blog twice a month, when I am online anyway to pay bills. I will check in, let you know I am okay, and update you on my hand's progress. I don't want to have long term damage, so I have to listen to the doctor. My future blogging schedule will be as follows...

February 14th

February 27th

March 15th

March 17th

March 18th

March 27th

April 15th

April 29

May 15th

May 29th

Back full time in June.

The month of June is my goal. It's also when California holds its primary. I can't miss that! And let's face it, this summer is going to be amazing! Election season, and all the amazing things to go and do and see! But really... nothing invigorates me like a good political fight! I am still a bit on the fence about my candidate. Hillary is someone I trust completely to handle women's issues, but Bernie has a proven track record also. I would like to have a woman lead, because let's face it, woman approach things completely different then men do. I think having her elected might just change the way women are treated in the workplace, and maybe, just maybe, women will finally make what men do for doing the same job! It's time for a woman! But Bernie really appeals to the progressive inside me. It's a touch decision. One thing I do know... I won't be ordering any campaign merchandise until after the primary! In the past, every time I did... my candidate imploded into a big ball of gone. Just ask John Edwards, the day after I ordered that cute little refrigerator magnet!

:)

See you February 14th!

Mood: Hopeful

 

Photograph: "Lunch At Panera On A Winter Day"

~Me :)

For The Last Full Day Of Summer...

"Once something has outlived its usefulness in one area of life, its purpose for being in existence is no longer the same. The leaf that captures a stream of sunlight, and then transfers its energy to the tree, serves one purpose in the spring and summer, and another completely different on through the

 fall and winter."

~Guy Finley

For the last day of summer, I am sitting at the computer, with my Google calendar opened to the month of October, so I can schedule all we have planned for our vacation month! We have a lot of activities to deal with. Days on the San Francisco Bay. Days we will spend apple picking in Apple Hill. Some pumpkin selecting in Half Moon Bay. We have some recipes to make for each other. A visit to a comedy club or two in the city. Farmer's Markets from Berkeley to Marin. Halloween parties. A Chilli cookoff in Santa Cruz. The Marin County Film Festival. A few new restaurants to try! Whew! You get the idea! I will be posting my activities soon, for now just know that with all I have to do to get ready for vacation... I always have time to stop and watch the leaves turn.

Fair warning... This blog is about to get autumn heavy!

:)

Mood: Happy

~Me :)

Quiet

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

~Albert Einstein

 

On Saturday, after I finished photographing the wreckage of the Asiana Airlines Flight 214, I decided to chill out for a few minutes before leaving BayFront Park. I was a bit tired, and it was an eerie feeling of seeing the reminents of what had been a pretty large aircraft just sitting still on the runway, with large, gaping holes and clear signs of having been on fire just a few hours earlier. I don't know that I was exactly ready for the sight in front of me, but I took the shots I wanted, and then recognizing the growing anxiety welling up, I stopped and sat in the grass for a bit, to just rest and decide how I wanted to approach yesterday's post.

Across the small body of water that seperates the airport from the park, were some cute little birds, Sandpipers I think, doing some fishing, completely oblivious to human tradgety not too far away. It was a nice sight. I took these two pictures, and immediately felt better, as so often happens when I have my camera with me. I kinda tease myself sometimes, that my camera is actually fused to my hand, but seriously, my cameras have always brought me so much comfort, that really and they really are a part of my body at this point. The best part of my body... lol... I have been told I have pretty eyes, but they aren't my best feature, my camera is! LOL. As we begin another Monday, I will be starting the day a little quiet, and happy for the real miracles that happen every day! Oh... and for my cameras!

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple."

~Dr. Suess

Mood: Quiet

~Me :)