I Saw Three Ships

Skywatch Friday - Pines

I think that I shall never see
billboards as lovely as a tree.
Perhaps unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all. 

~Ogden Nash, 

"Song of the Open Road"

(You can view sky photos from around the world at the Skywatch Friday site.)

Thoughtful Thursday

Danger sometimes hides in pretty packages

Flash 55–Childhood Sweethearts

(I had originally planned to post this on another day but decided to use something different instead. I thought I’d see how close I was to a Flash 55, and when I counted the words it was right on so I'm going for it. See other Flash 55 stories here.)

Know What I Like About The Ocean?

Besides everything, that is? You point your camera at it and ask it to wave and this is what you get.

What’s not to like about that?

Art Imitates Life Imitates Art

I had a few comments about the lifeguard  tower in Friday’s post so I thought I would show you some of the other lifeguard stations along Venice Beach during my September trip. The towers in Venice were among 156 Los Angeles County towers that made up the most extensive public art display in the country from May through October this year.

 
 Summer of Color, a privately funded and supported initiative, was the culmination of the efforts of nearly 6,000 children in schools, hospitals, and social service programs – and more than 2,500 adult volunteers – who participated in the initiative’s program activities, which included the painting of the panels. The program was sponsored by Portraits of Hope, a non- profit organization which enriches the lives of children and adults who are coping with serious illness through participation in creative projects.

 
On the last day of our trip we were bemoaning the fact that the tower rails and cross beams were being painted over by volunteers from Starbucks and Greater Los Angeles along with UCLA’s freshman class when an organizer stopped to explain to us that at the projects end the colorful panels were going to be donated to the participating institutions and to social service agencies around the world for the beautification of interior and exterior settings. Many of the panels will be shipped to Haiti for transitional homes, temporary shelters, schools, hospitals, and senior centers.

Where He Leads I Will Follow

This is my Spirit Guide, the Gila Woodpecker. He calls to me at certain times of the day which seem to change with the Seasons, and flies away before I can grab my camera and run to the window.

Except on this day.

I think he was trying to tell me, “It’s not that I am so small but that the sky is so big.”

3 Stooges

Sometimes interesting shots come from making the most boneheaded errors. This is what happened while trying to take a photo out by the pool one evening. I must have pushed the remote before everyone was ready.

Let's Go For A Walk

It's a lovely Sunday morning. Fall is in the air. Seems like a nice time to take a walk through the canals in Venice, CA.

The Beach

she left her heart on the beach

so many times she lost count,

but that didn’t stop her

from trying to remember every time

the ocean had washed ashore and

carried it away.

 

There Is No Substitute

Alas, my Hyundai Elantra will have to do.

How High The Moon?

Now, you know I am not one to complain about cloudy days. Phoenix boasts over 300 days of sunshine a year, but wouldn’t you know that the evening of the Super Harvest Moon the winds blew in a(nother) rainless storm that filled the sky with clouds.

Not to be cheated out of a chance at a moon shot, Magpie and my cousin, Kathy, who is visiting from Indiana, trudged up the Star Tower the next day in order to play with our cameras and attempt to capture the moon. This was the scene of the crime where Magpie and I had tried to photograph the full moon over the surrounding mountains on 3 or 4 occasions before. Alas, of the 65 days when the sun does NOT shine, Magpie and I had managed to come up here on one of them every time.

Magpie was the first one to see it.

We started clicking and watched it climb. Higher and higher.

Until it was just another moon.

Nah. It’s never “just another moon”.

I hope your weekend is not “just another weekend” and is filled with all kinds of beautiful!

Endless Summer

I returned a few days ago from an extended weekend trip to Venice. California not Italy. In truth, Venice, California will probably be as close to Venice, Italy as I ever get – Bucket List notwithstanding.

I don’t think you can fully appreciate a vacation that rewards you with morning and evening fog and cloudy days when temperatures do not rise above 65 degrees unless you’ve spent a thankless summer or two in the Southwestern deserts of the U.S. We’re still staring down the 100s this weekend, and I was ready for Autumn by mid-July.

 
Sunday afternoon the sun graced us with its presence starting at about 2 PM. We, along with quite a few others, sat on the beach watching the weekend slip below the horizon, and joined everyone in applause as it made a dramatic and graceful exit.


It’s the longest running show in history, never a repeat and a different ending every time. I never get tired of watching it.

This is a Skywatch Friday post. You can see many amazing sky photos at the Skywatch Friday website.

End Of Summer

Embers

Poor summer, it doesn't know it's dying.
A few days are all it has. Still, the lake
is with me, its strokes of blue-violet
and the fiery sun replacing loneliness.
I feel like an animal that has found a place.
This is my burrow, my nest, my attempt
to say, I exist. A rose can't shut itself
and be a bud again. It's a malady,
wanting it. On the shore, the moon sprinkles
light over everything, like a campfire,
and in the green-black night, the tall pines
hold their arms out as God held His arms
out to say that He was lonely and that
He was making Himself a man.

--Henri Cole

Venice Beach, CA

 

Lunch at the Sidewalk Cafe

(This is probably what I'm doing right now.)

Thoughtful Thursday

I Walk The Line

Always nice to find a pizza joint with class.

Flat Courthouse

Where Flat Stanley gets married, I suppose.

100 Seagulls: #1 - Jonathan Livingston, I Presume?

I have some blogging buddies who are doing a 100 Strangers photography project. Mind you, it's not that I'm anti-social or anything (okay maybe I am a little anti-social) but I simply prefer to take pictures of THINGS.

So. Here is my project called 100 Seagulls. I figure what can be STRANGER than this? It may take me a lifetime to complete being as I live in the desert and all, but it should be fun anyway.

:-)

I hope you will enjoy it, too, and if you have some seagull pictures you would like to share then drop me a line because this is important to me, and I'd really like to have this finished before I kick the bucket. I'm not opposed to doing a little cheating.

The seagull above seems to have a private (well, maybe a not so private) pad atop one of my favorite places in the world: the pier at the end of Washington Street in Venice, CA.

The Last Holiday of Summer (Wave Goodbye)

Boats bob in the harbor

bidding adieu to the balmy days of summer

with all its pretty baubles, bangles and beads,

and boisterous weekdays;

believing that Fall, boasting brash fiery colors,

and brisk morning walks, comes soon

surely to be followed by winter’s belligerent blustery winds.

“Boo hoo!” bawl the boats.

As do we all.