It's a beautiful area on a hill overlooking downtown Vancouver. There is some really terrific architecture:
The Boy coming out of his gate to his apartment:
More fun stuff around Vancouver:
It's interesting how the mountains are RIGHT THERE, and the town just nestles into this gorgeous valley.In Vancouver last weekend Jane made scones and we a classic English Cream Tea - Devon Cream, jam and a sweet wee Brown Bettyteapot full of Earl Grey tea. Ali set up his fish eye lens and captured the festivities.
This next photo has me mugging for Ali, and Jane and I have 3 laptops open, trying to figure out her password for iTunes. Which she is searching for in her address book. Her paper address book where she keeps all her passwords.
Here's the pincushion I made for Jane, designed by one of my favorite Etsy vendors, Carol of The Daily Pincushion. You can either buy a ready made one from her, or buy the kit and do it yourself! Making it re-awakened my interest in embroidery and was good hand therapy as well.
Boys and their toys. Mike and Ali monkeying around with one of Mike's remote controlled helicopters. Ali got to try it out and discovered that Mike has some mad skillsand makes it look way easier than it really is.
... or any other Hallmark holiday for that matter. Which is pretty much every "holiday" except for Thanksgiving and the 4th of July. And the 4th primarily because I adore fireworks.
HOWEVER.
I was cleaning out a dresser that was my Mother's. I had cleaned it out several times in my old house, but never pulled the drawers completely out. Today I did. I found this:
Mom's handwriting slants upwards and reads: "T-cell rearrangement of peripheral blood lyphocytes (molecular genetics stu.... " and it's maddeningly torn off there. I don't know the person the letter is from, don't know if it's relevant that it's from the Center for Molecular Medicine & Genetics, don't know if it relates to one of the four cancers that she had. I just don't know.
It's a little hit to the heart, to see her handwriting again. I love the lackadaisical backhand and the loopy letters. It's so precise in it's relational height, letter to letter, but free spirited and against the grain (ie. not forehand). Very much like Mom. Seeing her handwriting reminds me of all the times I would sit and watch her write her articles for medical journals, write a note for me for school, write a letter to her mother or a friend, write an address in her address book, sign a check, and it takes me RIGHT BACK. Right back there, next to her.
The paper is scented with her house and I feel overwhelmed.
...and my birthday present! yay! Thank you, Ali! It was shot with a medium format Rolleiflex.
A visit to his school this weekend and I was able to see the photo in situ, amongst his peers. I'm very proud of him.
I love the velvety blacks and contrast in this photo. This is my father (aka Pops) and Peter's son Ben, one of my nephews. They are very intently examining the wonderful Märklin Trains that have been a passion of Pops and Peter since Peter was little. Now Peter's sons, Ben and Patrick, follow their father's and grandfather's path, building wonderful imaginary landscapes in their basement, threading these beautiful little machines into the scenery.
I imagine that the sights and sounds grabbed Pops in some profound way and transported him back to an earlier, happier time. Not only back to our family basement with Peter, but also back to his boyhood in Germany. I'm certain that Pops was smitten with the belching smoke, screeching brakes and enormity of the huge metal beasts that were so much a part of his life.
Hovering in the background is the fact that his parents, Ernst and Berta, were marched through the streets of Mainz with other Jews, jeered at by their non-Jewish neighbors, delivered to trains that transported them to their deaths. They are memorialized, with their peers, on Yad Vashem, in the Central Database of Shoah Victim's Names "... (that) together with its partners, has collected and recorded here the names and biographical details of half of the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their accomplices. Millions more still remain unidentified: It is our collective duty to persist until all their names are recovered."
"We are the bows of the living arrows that are our children." ~ Kahlil Gibran
Pops broke his femur on Friday. Less than two weeks after he was discharged from rehab for a hip replacement on the same side.
Yes. A visit to Microsoft HQ in Redmond.
I survived.
Some bland corporate architecture and semi-cool lighting effects. So, meh.
A visit to the Corporate Store. Now, if this had been Apple......
The only thing that really interests me that they do is their shuttles from Park and Ride locations. You drive to a central point, hop a Microsoft bus, van, or car and you can use the on board wireless connection while someone else drives you to work. Theoretically saving wear and tear on the environment, your car, gas usage etc. However, my thought is that it's really a way to get you logged on to work that much earlier. Time stealing. I don't know if it's a fair trade or not, but it's right in keeping with the Microsoft insidious methodology.
....."Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s adjusted the way they graded securities after Goldman Sachs Group Inc., UBS AG and at least six more banks pressured them, according to a U.S. Senate report." ......"Relying on mathematical models, Moody’s and S&P awarded AAA ratings to mortgage securities packaged during the five-year housing boom, deeming them as safe as government bonds. About 90 percent of AAA securities backed by subprime mortgages from 2006 and 2007 were later downgraded to junk status, Levin’s committee said.".....
Standard and Poor's issues a negative report and the stock market plummets? I know it's a different "product" and a different time, but aren't they still the same asshats that bent under pressure to change the ratings of the sketchy mortgages?
(Illustration by Victor Juhasz)
The best reporting of this stuff is in the Rolling Stone, done by Matt Taibbi. He explains everything clearly, and doesn't hold back on his outrage. And VIctor's illustrations always make me laugh. Check it out.
Yeah, we're talking some major daffodil schizz here. The folks in Tacoma aren't content to just let the poor narcissus bloom in peace. They make floats out of them, crown kings and queens and even paint their buses with them. There's even a daffodil attire. They don't mess around.
The royal court:
I rest my case. I took these photos at Point Defiance Park. Without any foo-far-rah. Just me and my camera, no floats or queens or buses. However, two days after I took these photos the Pagoda caught on fire. Coincidence? I don't think so. I sense the fine hand of narcissus in revolt.
I wish I could take good self portraits like Lina does. I always feel goofy taking my own photo and never seem to look in the right direction.
Check out the beautiful (cheap and cheerful!) patio set I bought at Costco. Max has definitely lost his mojo - he followed me out to the garage and then balked at coming back into the house because he was spooked by the furniture. Which he had just walked by. Which hadn't bothered him before. I had to go and pick him up and carry him back into the house. Oy.
Ali did this painting a couple of years ago and it was a birthday present of mine that somehow did not make it into my POD. My friend Lori was nice enough to take it to UPS and they packed it up and it arrived on Friday. (Thank you Lori!!) My heart jumped into my throat when I opened the box - an old friend comes home!
Ali and I separately arrived at an admiration for Weegee and were mutually delighted to discover each other's admiration for the great photographer.
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