The signs at the beaches here in Central California, caution people to be aware of sneaker waves; “Never turn your back on the water,” they warn, lest a rogue wave wash over you and carry you out to sea. Here in the Bay Area we know all about sneaker waves, those rare large waves that appear at their own menacing whim, a deadly outlier in a series of smaller waves. You might be wading in a few inches of water when, without warning, a large sneaker wave suddenly sweeps you off your feet and pulls you out to a watery death.
We turned our backs on COVID-19; we got complacent and before we knew it a sneaker COVID wave swept over California and the nation. New highs in cases, new highs in positives, soaring hospitalizations and a death toll that’s spiraling unchecked. All of this in just a few short weeks. Continue reading
Get outside. Watch the sunrise. Watch the sunset. How does that make you feel? ~ Amy Grant
There aren’t many subjects that move a photographer like dogs, kids and sunsets and I don’t mean to impose any particular order on this distinguished trio of subjects.
Sunrise though doesn’t rate so highly. That’s not to rob from the beauty of a city sunrise silhouette…
San Francisco skyline at dawn. Shot from Pt. Cavallo on the north end of the Golden Gate Bridge
…or the first blush warming a mountain face. One has to work for a sunrise. The reward of capturing a mountain dawn means leaving the comfort of a warm bed in the chill of the predawn darkness.
Sunrise lights up the face of the Grand Teton range. Foreground is the Moulton Barn.
My last post was a tribute to autumn and with the season FALLing towards winter here’s a last photographic tribute to this colorful season in the Golden State.
Sonoma Valley.
Established as a Spanish settlement in 1823, the town of Sonoma is located in the colorful wine country valley of the same name. The valley is home to over 400 wineries including the Buena Vista Winery, California’s oldest winery, and Gundlach-Bundschu, the state’s oldest, continually operating family winery.
Below, a home sits in a bright autumn hued vineyard.
Since you went away the days grow long And soon I’ll hear old winter’s song But I miss you most of all my darling When autumn leaves start to fall ~ Songwriters: Johnny Mercer / Jacques Andre Marie Prevert / Joseph Kosma
I detest that song Autumn Leaves. Yeah I know, it’s a sort of sacrilege to throw shade on Nat King Cole. I’m more or less ambivalent towards the song and Mr. Cole. My issue is that the song brings back memories of Mr. Navarro, my chain smoking guitar teacher who insisted on teaching me “old people’s” songs, like Autumn Leaves, when I wanted to learn Beatles and Beach Boys songs.
Autumn just sort of happened this year. Seemed as if one day I was basking in a warm pleasant Indian Summer when whomever or whatever controls the thermostat decided to turn it down to autumn. One morning I was running in short sleeves and the next I was in long sleeves and watching the puffs of Lexi’s condensed breath as she trotted in front of me.
It can get cold in the Bay Area but it rarely gets COLD; COLDlike my cousin experiences in Wyoming. Below zero COLD. Our cold is lower case compared to parts of the rest of the country where you can only do justice to the raw iciness by expressing it in caps, bold and underlined – COLD– screaming COLD. Still it’s what you’re used to and if you’re accustomed to 50 – 60 degree (F) mornings a 35 degree morning is downright arctic. So you have to understand that when it comes to temperature extremes we’re a little wussy here in the Bay Area.
“I enjoy the spring more than the autumn now. One does, I think, as one gets older,” wrote Virginia Woolf.
I have to agree with Ms. Woolf. I don’t do autumn very well these days. Ms. Woolf didn’t just pull that saying from her ass. Then again great writers don’t usually pull phrases from their asses. They leave that sort of thing to political hacks. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz come to mind – but let’s not veer too far into that arena. There’s actually some science behind Ms. Woolf’s comment on old folk and cold weather. Something about changes in metabolism, less elasticity in the blood vessels and thinner layers of fat (As I look down at my belly and a layer that could actually use some thinning I’m not sold on that latter theory).
It’s taken 232 years but America is on the very brink of losing the boasting rights of being a true Democratic Republic. We may have been the first, back in 1788 when the Constitutional ratification was completed. Even with some built in flaws it was historic; a landmark in world history.
We’re in danger now of losing the high ground. The moral standing dribbling away with the hair dye that trickled down Drunkle Rudy Giuliani’s cheeks as he went on a bizarre, evidence free rant about rampant fraud in the presidential election.
What’s a “drunkle” you ask? A drunkle is the uncle who shows up uninvited to a family dinner. Arriving already tanked he sails straight to the rum punch to top off. Later, with the family seated for dinner in anticipation of food and fellowship, the drunkle raises a toast in honor of the hostess’s boobs and then wanders away from the table to throw up on the white couch.
It’s been ten days since the election saga began and at times it seems that we’re worse off than we were when this all started on November 3rd, election day 2020. I’ve been away from this blog since the 6th. In fact, I’ve been physically away having been on a short road trip to Lake Tahoe and California’s Gold Country.
The original plan was to continue to write posts about this melodrama while away but I was compelled by my lazier and certainly wiser angels to take a break and enjoy family and the dogs in cushions of fresh mountain snow (A post about that trip may appear on this very page. Stay tuned).
Victory and celebration
Departure day was Saturday the 7th, and when I got up Biden was within a poorly shaved whisker of having the race called for him. At some point while I was packing the car and we were all going through time honored tradition of pre-departure confusion, last minute trips to the bathroom and “what are we forgetting” antics, the networks called Pennsylvania for Joe Biden, giving him 20 electoral votes, 3 more than the required 270; game-set-match.
Cora and I alternately sighed in relief and revelled in joy. At times that morning I felt a welling of tears. Throughout the day Kool and the Gang’s anthem song Celebration washed away the troubles of the past four years. The Trump regime, a four year reign of terror, was finally nearing a visible end. News had it that the Donald himself was on the golf course when the results came in. Apparently his handlers realizing that the “Fuck Trump” grafitti was on the wall led him to the course where a few clubs likely lost their lives, drowned in lakes or wrapped around trees.
While Trump was communing with the nature that he never really appreciates except for what riches it’s desecration might bring him, an extraordinary thing happened across America. In cities and towns from coast to coast people spilled onto the streets, not to protest as has happened all too often since spring, but to rejoice; to bask in the release of four years of pent up tension, fear and uncertainty.
The scenes of Americans kicking up their heels, jumping for joy and dancing with people who moments before were strangers were all reminiscent of the day that World War II had come to an end. It was the same national joy that occurs when a dictator is shown the door, such as what happened in the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos was deposed. It was a scene I never expected to see in my America. You have to be quite the shit heel when perfect strangers dance in the streets in the middle of a pandemic to celebrate your political demise.
On the way to Tahoe I bought some Champagne to celebrate the ending of the dark days. That night we toasted and celebrated as the Parisians and the Romans had done when the Nazi flags were toppled and trampled. Continue reading
It was 3:30 A.M-ish when I peeked at my phone, shielding the light from Cora in order to avoid an elbow in the ribs. Joe Biden had taken the lead in Georgia. Well, that was like the wee hours of Christmas morning when you hear the rustling of wrapping paper downstairs and sleep becomes the impossible dream.
At 6 A.M. I couldn’t stand the suspense so I got out of bed and made for the T.V. tuner. When I turned on the T.V. I found that Santa had indeed arrived. Biden was ahead in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. None of those states had yet been called, the counts are razor thin and there are more votes to be counted. My heart celebrated while my head warned me that Santa could still repossess the gifts. Let’s remember that old saying, reworded in the more appropriate language of the day, “It’s not over until the plus sized person sings.”
Finding himself behind is Trump now going to reverse course and demand that every corner of every state be scoured for missing ballots? Continue reading
I woke up this morning at 5:30 with the expectation that we would know the election results. I let Lexi out, looked down at the tuner and asked myself, “Do you really wanna know?”
A quick glance revealed no real change from last night.
“What the hell,” I whispered at John Berman. (The family was still asleep.)
The banner at the bottom of the screen described the race as “razor thin.”
No shit!
Looking at the totals, the gaps and the votes was discouraging. I’ve seen this movie. I had a recollection of the days when I was coaching high school cross country. I remembered those times watching one of my team steadily closing the gap on the leader; closer, closer and closer still, gobbling up distance with each yard. Hopes suddenly dashed by the realization that there’s not enough real estate left in the race. If the race had been 3.5 miles or even 3.2 miles instead of the official 3.1, she would’ve taken the race. I feel like there isn’t enough real estate of votes left for Biden to overtake Trump where he needs to.
An hour later Lexi and I were walking past the nearby wetlands. The rising sun lent a golden glow to the ground fog that hugged the reeds in a chilly wet embrace. Normally I would be running but the anxiety of the last few days has sapped my energy.
It occurred to me that I’ve had this feeling before. Back in 2010 when the Bush depression was hemorrhaging jobs around the country and at the company I was working for, I drove to work every morning wondering if my day would begin with an escort to the H.R. office. When I was finally let go the feeling was one of relief that the crushing tension had been finally relieved.
I had the same feeling when we were waiting for Cora’s biopsies after a scan had revealed a mass. Mass. I never did like that term. The doctor described the “mass” in terms of centimeters but the word describes something the size of a continent. Continue reading
Even with 15mg of Melatonin in my system sleep didn’t come easy this morning (bedtime was 12:30 A.M.) and didn’t last long. At 3:30 I was awake and peeking at my phone to see if there was any news but whatever I saw didn’t register.
The rest of the early morning was spent looking up into the darkened ceiling, trying to sort out what had transpired just hours earlier. And what it all means.
When I went to bed, the President of the United States had just made a brief, fuming appearance in the White House in front of family, supporters and assorted cult members. He blithered for a while about his leads in battleground states being insurmountable before cutting to the chase, that in his estimation the vote in these states was fraudulent because an abundance of votes were yet to be counted. And then to the cheers of his forelock tuggers he announced that he was going to ask the Supreme Court to halt the vote counting. Welcome to coup American style. As of this writing at 9:30 A.M. I’ve heard nothing more about the Supreme Court. Maybe one of his handlers bitch slapped him or force fed him his meds. Continue reading
I voted early today, an hour or so after the polls opened. The initial plan, months ago, was to vote early by mail but after some consideration and, more to the point, reports of chicanery on the part of Trump’s man in the Postal Service and threats by the Republican Party to challenge the integrity of the election I decided to vote the old fashioned way.
In our little corner of Hercules the polling site for our small precinct is the local recreation center. Just as in any previous election there were no lines. I guess that was just about the only holdover from past elections. COVID dictated separate entry and exit doors, plastic shields, gloves, sanitizers, single use pens and socially distanced booths.
As in any presidential election there’s tension about it. And rightly so when you consider that we’re hiring the driver of the national bus for the next four years. Think back to every presidential election and the quadrennial warning about any given election being the most important one in decades.
“They’ll take away your guns,” cry the right.
“They’ll take away civil rights,” warn the left.
The guy on the right is labelled a nationalist, the one on the left a socialist even if in reality they’re each just barely to the left or right of dead center.
We hear every four years that the presidential election is the election of the century and the fate of the nation hangs in the balance and anybody who has the temerity of voting his or her conscience is scolded for “wasting a vote,” or “helping the other guy win.” By all means never let your conscience be your guide.
This year is different. This year there’s more than just tension. Tension has been elevated to anxiety and anxiety to fear. I could never have imagined that businesses would board up their windows in anticipation of violence and a non-scalable fence erected around the White House, the people’s house. Those are things that happen in countries ruled by repressive regimes. In America the president isn’t supposed to fear the people. It’s not supposed to come to the point in America where the president has incurred such public wrath that the White House should be turned into a castle. Continue reading
The Life in My Years 