Tree Trimmers

 

So, an almost disaster morning turned out to be a winner, better than I hoped or anticipated.

Here I was, MINDING my own business, sitting on the lanai, trying to do something creative with colored felt tip markers, sipping a cup of freshly brewed coffee. Finished meditating. Looking around for a photo. No birds around singing or fishing. No trees blowing in the wind. No flowers in bloom. Just carts spreading poisons and lawn care workers shaving trees. The noise was deafening and the spraying made my eyes tear.

As I got packed up to go inside, a man wearing a Yankee baseball hat, holding a chainsaw (an instrument of destruction unfamiliar to and not allowed in the arsenal of Jewish men) knocked on the screen. In some undecipherable language, he motioned with his hands like he had a camera and said “Photo.” Let’s leave aside how he knew I was a photog, something I will never know and couldn’t ask, but I assumed he meant he wanted me to take his photo.

I grabbed my nearby camera, made sure I had a chip and a battery, and went outside. There were two of them. I separated them, posed them and shot, using my hands and feet and some facial expressions. They bantered, but I didn’t understand a word. After a few shots, I held up 5 fingers and said 5 minutes; they pointed where they were going.

I ran inside to the printer, imported the chip, did some minor processing and printed two 8.5×11 prints. Now, I had to find them.

Without saying something which will have me accused of some racist language, the workers all looked alike, except for their tools. I stopped a few, showed them the pics and asked, using hand signals, where the guys were. Some didn’t answer, probably fearing I was ICE. One pointed down the block and followed me as I continued my search.

I could hear the sound of the trimmer and knew I was on the right track. When they saw me, they turned off their instruments of destruction. One came over to me, looked at the image, smiled and gave me a sweaty half-hug. The other glowed.

Not bad for a street photo inside the Gates of Valencia Reserve, eh?

No Thanksgiving

Not that Thanksgiving was ever one of my favorite holidays, but today’s Thanksgiving hurts more than any and means less. The deaths in Israel and Gaza of innocent people, old and young alike, leaves me bereft. I grieve mightily for the losses on both sides and the absence of dignity and purpose in the entire affair.

My heart breaks for the living, as well as the dead, parents, siblings, friends, associates. I cannot imagine what it feels like to have lost someone or not to know if someone was lost. The sorrow and sadness keeps me awake at night, despite feeling personally safe and despite not personally knowing anyone who died. I see the destruction in my dreams and hear the cries. I can smell the fetid air and taste the pollution on my tongue. No one feels safe and everyone knows it.

I know the pain of isolation and aloneness, the despair of not having family or friends, of being hated. I never learned to hate, though I did learn to be hated. I learned love through my wife. No god ever shined countenance on me or gave me peace and no hater ever said they were sorry or tried to renew a friendship or family relationship. My life was destroyed, but I got to leave with my head up, some trinkets and a spouse. Where do they go and with whom.

Stripped of my career, legacy and heritage, I was left only with my self-esteem and a loving, caring wife. At least I had that. What will they have: more fear of annihalition, complete destruction, obliteration. Who will care for them in sickness and in health? Who will they trust to protect them?

No one will come to our table to share a harvest feast. We don’t eat turkey or tell the story of the Native American Wampanoag people. There will be no arguments about who made the best stuffing or gravy and no collapses on the couch to watch football games. Just some Osso Bucco and a glass or two of red “whine”.

I can only hope that tomorrow some hostages on both sides are released.

Turtle Alert

So, as we drove down the entry lane of our community, a turtle crossed the road. We drove past, turned around, and headed back to enable me to pick it up and move it to safety, near to the water.

A black Cadillac, big one, super Esplanade, driving in the center of the road back towards us at a speed exceeding the limit, drove over the turtle, causing a gunshot like noise which resounded through the neighborhood (women walkers on the next block told us they heard it).

We chased the driver down and informed him. He drove off.

Our neighbor Chuck, a regular walker, was on his way to play tennis. He picked up the turtle, carried it to the water’s edge and turned it over. The turtle sped in.

We called a local turtle sanctuary. They say turtles with broken backs don’t usually survive.

Eying Nick Cage

SO, Nick Cage, he of the Coppola’s family, and the husband in 5 marriages, plus and academy award has a new movie out which I will go to see. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/05/movies/nicolas-cage-dream-scenario.html?searchResultPosition=1

I will go see the movie, but, I would rather talk with him about life. What an interesting person. Being a Coen Bros fan, I latched on to him in “Raising Arizona.”It has one of my favorite movie lines, one spoken after a prison break: “we are releasing ourselves on our own recognizance.”

So many good movies and so many bad ones. He even has an academy award for “Leaving Las Vegas.”

Passport Renewal

Not that we are going anywhere, but our passports needed renewal because we had run out of blank pages. How do you like that? We had been to so many places that required a stamp, that we didn’t have enough pages if we travelled again.

Sadly, I had to send in the passport to get a new one. I didn’t make a copy of the pages to remind me where I have been. I can remember, but who knows for how long. And, at 76, this is probably my last passport. Perhaps they will return it and I will have to rely on my fading memory.

But the best thing was making the photos, pictured above to use. They provide a list of requirements: size, color, pose, lighting, background, expression, attire. They also provide a crop tool.

To fill out the application on your computer, you need Adobe Acrobat. I downloaded it, gave them a credit card, and got a clean copy so no-one could complain about my handwriting. Today, I will have to cancel my 7 day trial (why doesn’t AARP have a discount for this?).

I used my studio lights and a white backdrop. Printed on my semi-professional printer. Cut on a paper cutter and used an exacto blade on the edges. The final results will be mailed to the Government and copies stored in my portfolio.

This saved me no money, because …. But it did save me a trip to UPS or Staples or a photog. Now, I just have to deal with the anxiety of having my pictures rejected for some technical reason like the wrong size, expression, lighting or clothing.

Sharon Duckman, 75

So, Sharon is 75 today and just as beautiful as when I met her. She worries too much about me and everyone and everything and not enough about herself. To her, a very happy birthday, and she probably won’t read this post, because she doesn’t read any of my posts. I will share this story anyway to tell you whom she is.

Many years ago, probably more than ten, when, during the time we were running away, we either bought or sold a place we were living. The law firm which did the closing kept some escrow money. Being us, we didn’t check the papers, probably went out to dinner or to a bar to celebrate and forgot.

Two days ago, a letter came in the mail with a check for $2,000. Sharon called the firm where she had  worked as a paralegal to figure out what the check was for. Her former co-worker could not tell her exactly what transaction the money was from, except that they had lost our address and were going to send the money to the State as unclaimed funds and were giving it one more shot to find us.

They brought each other up to date on common friends and families and that was it; no big deal. Now what to do with the money?

In our house, we honor community property when it comes to found money. We each claimed a half share. Sharon promptly sent her half share to Magen David Adom where Michael Bloomberg is matching donations up to 44 million. https://afmda.org/news/bloomberg-gift/

I bought a bottle of champagne. Have not figured out what to do with the rest.

Diversity

If birds of different feathers can get together, all of us should be able to. I wonder if they even know the difference. Like, when an English Bulldog comes up to an Irish Setter, does he know they each possess opposite character traits. How about these birds. If one tweets, does the other understand? Does the white bird avoid the black bird, because of color?

Tree Near Norton

Walking down the street near the Norton Museum of Art after an art date, I saw this tree glistening in the late afternoon sunlight. After a few minutes, it started to talk to me. Art always talks to me, especially after seeing some masters. https://petapixel.com/2023/10/13/talking-to-trees-photographing-the-expressive-nature-of-trees/

The show featured impressionists, including Cezanne, Soutaine, Degas and Van Gogh. They came from the Pearlman Collection at Princeton, a collection amassed by a guy with taste and imagination and money, although he said not enough. He liked artists who were on a mission to find themselves

I see Chaim Soutaine in my tree.