Alan and I ordered a ton of movies for this vacation, because we will be spending more time at home than on previous holidays. At least for the first half of the four weeks we have together. So, in addition to our old favorites like, St Elmo's Fire, The Legend of Boggy Creek, and The Changeling, we will have these great films, plus a few you don't see here. I also ordered, The World According to Garp, and Creepshow! I have been adding to my Robin Williams collection a few times a year. I miss him very much, so I am looking forward to just kicking back and enjoying Garp. And I will always need a Stephen King film in the month of October. It wouldn't be autumn without watching great films like, The Stand, The Shining or IT. IT was recently remade, which is okay, but the 1990 television adaptation will always be near and dear to my heart. I am beginning to think of our once a year, Movie-A-Palooza as collecting beautiful autumn leaves. I'm a little weird about autumn I think.
"The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance."
~Aristotle
This post is a not to our latest #PhotoByRequest subject "Public Art". A subject, which you know, I adore, which is why I chose it. Sacramento is full of public art of all kinds, and it is glorious! I can't wait to go back on vacation and spend a day just photographing the art, food, architecture, and trees. All 110,000 of them! But right now, it's all about the art. Of all the pieces I photographed, the Pop art by street artist, Norman Ayles, is my favorite. I will be doing another post soon about those pieces specifically! Those two pieces really spoke to me!
Art About Town: Sacramento
Murals
More on this piece in a different post to come at a later date.
Okay, so, as I type this I am sitting in Twitter jail. Or is it, sent to my room? No jail. Definitely Jail. Or as my friend Izzy calls it. Twitmo. At first I was pretty angry that some sniveling fucking pearl clutcher decided that of all the left leaning accounts telling off California Congressman Kevin McCarthy, mine was the most offensive one, but truth is, who knows how many the melting little snowflake reported? It's not like Republicans have any backbone what so ever. But the one thing I will never be able to understand about that lot it, why don't they understand just how much of a moral victory they hand folks like me, when they get us put in Twitter jail?
Personally, I hope it was McCarthy himself that reported me, because that would mean I got to him! Right now! While he is defending the abusive and dangerous rhetoric of a man clearly on the last legs of any sanity he might have possessed! Wouldn't that be delightfully rich? In actuality, it really doesn't matter because here I sit, all because I made a metaphorical joke about how he is punching himself in the face with his support of Trump. A man who will never show him the same loyalty, that he is showing Trump. As for Twitter, I knew that they could limit free speech on their playground, it's their private property after all, I recognize that, but who knew they could limit hopes and wishes?
The only possible harm, in my little joke would occur, if McCarthy decided to ACTUALLY punch himself in the face! If he's stupid enough to do that, is that really my fault? But okay, I will go forward on Twitter knowing the only hopes and wishes I am allowed on Twitter, is to see a handsome prince carry off a princess on a unicorn. While the President Of The United States continues to post this...
Lies. Profanity. A blatant disregard for how anything in the world works, including the political systems of other countries, as well as our own. A thinly coded call for civil war, and more. But I can't hope Kevin McCarthy doesn't stop supporting Trump, because, I admit it, it is amusing watching, asshole after asshole, think they will be the one to, experience and enjoy, Trump's gratitude and loyalty.
There is no Autumn Leaf Of The Day in this post, but there will be one in my next post, which will be about a much nicer subject, the #PhotoByRequest project! This week, it's all about the Public Art!
"The three types of terror: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something a green and slimy splatters against your arm. The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm. And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel it's breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there... "
~Stephen King
What is terror? Terror is being awakened from a deep sleep, by the sound of your home security system, alerting you that an intruder has attempted entry! That happened to me yesterday, at 7:23 AM. My phone was lit up red. My alarm system was lit up red. Both were screaming, loudly, both saying someone had tried to come in through the back door, off the living room. I couldn't function. I am not sure if it was because the sound of the alarms terrified me, or if it was because I was barely dressed. Or if it was because I had no idea what the intruder wanted. Was it an attempted robbery? An attempted rape? Someone itching to commit murder? What did they want?
I will never know the answer to that question. By the time I could function, about 3 or 4 minutes, they were gone. I never got a chance to see who they were. A man? A woman? A wacky child? A ghost? A vampire? I have no idea, which makes the whole thing a lot worse, because I will play the "whatif's" the rest of my life. Or, more realistically, at least for the rest of the time I spend in this house! What if we had never installed an alarm system? What if the back door hadn't been locked? What if I had seen them? What if the fur babies had been hurt? What if? What if? What if?
It's terrifying not knowing if they spent time watching the house, waiting for Alan to leave. It's a terrifying thought that I will have to spend Thursday and Friday of this week, alone in the house. Do I sleep? Can I sleep? How do I face this fear? I guess I have no real choice. I will face Thursday and Friday, and every other day, going forward, alone. Alan can't do the work on the fear for me. That's mine. I suppose I will be okay. Alan is going to run a couple errands in the middle of the day tomorrow, which will give me a chance to be in the house alone. That will be a healthy thing for me, I think. I hope. If only I could shake the feeling from this morning...
"... It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind
you, you hear it, you feel it's breath against your ear, but when you
turn around, there's nothing there... ".
Last Saturday was beautiful. It was the final Saturday of September, and there was no way I was going to miss the beautiful clouds dotting the sky or the warm autumn sun. One thing I have come to really love about the Central Valley, is the ease of which photos of the sky can be accomplished. There are lots of cool rural roads, that provide an awesome open sky. I miss the hills in the Bay Area, but once I got used to a new system of photographing my chosen subject, I found the new way of doing things really rewarding. Last Saturday was a really good day with the camera, I was happy with the results, I found lots of leaves, and it felt good to step outside my head for a while!
This is the upper board, of an old fence, that sits in one of my favorite parks. Weeds have taken over, killing off the last of the spring and summer flowers, and there is such a autumn finality to it, that made me happy, so I photographed it. I would paint this one I think, if I ever do keep my promise to get the paint box out. A brand new clean canvas awaits, as does inspiration, so, like last year, I can't help but wonder... will this will be the year I finally do the painting? Shrug. Anyway, this pic reminds me of a ghost of a summer flower, who knows it's already dead by the hands of it's stalker, autumn, but is hiding behind the fence anyway. Maybe I will call the flower, Laurie Strode. Why Laurie Strode? Because Laurie, was scared and injured, but fought back, and I can identify with that these days. She's been my scream queen hero since I was 15. Why stop now?
"Come, little leaves," said the wind one day, "come to the meadows with me and play. Put on your dresses of red and gold; For summer is past, and the days grow cold."
~George Cooper
Last weekend Alan and I took a drive west, to the East Bay, to check out the leaf progression. Yesterday, it was north to Sacramento! Both destinations provided a lot of beautiful leaves. It's early in autumn, but so far, all signs are pointing to a the likelihood of a gorgeous autumn this year! I am feeling pretty optimistic! Next weekend is the official start of our vacation!
the leaves lulled themselves to sleep and Autumn was awakened."
~Raquel Franco
I took this photo on February 17th, of this year, but haven't posted it before now. I am not sure why, it's a gorgeous bird, and I was happy enough with how the photo turned out, but I just never made the effort to share it. That was a shame, I think, that bird made it through cold dark days, and it seemed really beautiful. It had an absolute right to be seen and photographed, it was doing it's part for the earth. Keeping it's promises. And what was I doing? Moping around, feeling exhausted and uninspired. Self inflicted. As the Trump impeachment bricks begin to fall, I am realizing how much energy, time, and emotion I willingly gave to a man who deserved none of it. I let myself fall into a waking depression, and wrote the script for allowing myself to wallow in it, under the guise of, there was no way to feel better until autumn came back. Which was some actual bullshit if ever there was some! Well, I am going to try my best to change things, work a little harder at moving forward with eyes fixed on the time when all this bullshit stops. Who knows, maybe when autumn says goodnight for another year, I won't just stop living again.Who knows what I have missed while it wasn't autumn? What a ridiculous waste of time.
"How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget."
The Eagles
Hotel California
It was the last beautiful flower on the bush it was growing on. All around it, dead and dying flowers, but this one looked absolutely pristine. It was dancing in the wind like it had been choreographed by Twyla Tharp. I had to pay it tribute. Cull Canyon park was a feast for the eyes last weekend, and I am so glad we visited. I doubt I will be visiting again for at least a couple weeks, because tomorrow I am planning to head to Sacramento to do some leaf peeping, probably near the Crocker Gallery. It's one of my favorite haunts this time of year. I am hoping to be doing a lot more museums on this vacation, but I also want to visit some federal lands and some parks, plus the leaf peeping, and the movies, and Monterey, and San Francisco and Berkeley, and movie locations, and, and, and. I have way too much planned, to fit into just 4 weeks. It looks like there might be an impeachment to hold my interest as well, so there's that! But we are talking about right now, and visiting Sacramento. It's motto is "City of Trees" and I plan to visit as many as possible before autumn is over! They have over 110,000! That's a lot of leaves, dancing around in my brain, like Twyla's watching.
"I like this place and could willingly wast my time in it."
~Shakespeare
It's Thursday, and therefore time for an all new #PhotoByRequest challenge on Twitter. This week Karen chose the topic of, "Wild Things." Here again we have another series of photos from last Saturday, only this time it is about the simple nature of the end of summer, and the last of the ugly grass type hedges growing along Castro Valley boulevard. I have no idea what it's called, because I have pretty much hated it my whole life, but the other day the hedges were casting some cool shadows, and the colors were nice against the colors in the background. Anyway, it was the last day of summer... almost... and these had gone to seed, so I decided it might just work for this week's topic!
