These geraniums never quit: they’re in a huge Chinese pot (which self bought for $20 decades ago from San Francisco Chinatown) and have been blooming all year. This is one pot that was not upended by the wind storm of a couple of days ago. That’s because it’s fat, big, and heavy.
Posting for Cee Neuner’s Flower of the Day:
Thanks to Jez Braithwaite for hosting the Fan of . . . challenge.
Self loves sending out Christmas cards. This holiday season was a little hectic. Alas, she didn’t send out as many as she normally does. But she still loves getting them in the mail. She pastes them on a wall in her living room. Sometimes she even keeps them up all year.
Today the boxed sets of Christmas cards were 50% off at Gallery Bookshop in Mendocino. This beautiful set (Art by Trevor Waugh) is printed in England and says, “Wishing you all the joys of the season.” She can’t wait to send them out next Christmas!
Still playing catch-up with the PPAC Challenge! Self spent last weekend in Carmel. One of the main purposes for the visit — aside from meeting an aunt she hadn’t seen in 20 years! — was seeing Robinson Jeffers’ Tor House, which had just re-opened for tours. Self is a lover of gardens, and the garden of the Tor House has been featured in several gardening books she owns.
To get to it from the north (the San Francisco Bay Area), you take 101 south, then 85, then 17 north, and finally pass through Salinas. Driving the 25 miles through Salinas to the Carmel turn-off will take almost an hour, because this area has perennial stop-and-go traffic. You will see fields, many fields! All in all, the drive took self almost 3 hours. She arrived about 15 minutes before the 1 p.m. tour she’d signed up for.
The tour of house and tower takes about an hour. Our guide was David, and he was really good. It will make you weep when you learn that Jeffers bought his lot for something like $200.
The views from Hawk Tower, right next to the house, are spectacular. Watch your step, the stairs are very narrow.
To think Robinson Jeffers built the house and tower all by himself! Tours cost $12.
The house is truly unique. Don’t miss, if you’re in the area.
This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is SHINE.
Which is why self took her camera along when she caught a FACINE (Filipino Arts & Cinema International) 23 film screening at the Little Roxie on 16th St.
The film, Ari: My Life With a King, was sweet and gentle and lovely. Rooted in place.
Great script, great editing. By a first-time filmmaker, too. Remember his name: Carlo Enciso Catu.
Self would like to give a shout-out to Mauro Feria Tumbocon, Jr. for nurturing this festival, now in its 23rd year.
The Festival’s last day is tomorrow. Tickets for individual films are $10.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
About that jacket: it’s become a habit with self that the day after she arrives in London, she proceeds straight to Cambridge to visit her friend Dodo.
As usual, she left California in a flurry and didn’t bring a jacket. She arrived in Cambridge to rain. Dodo made her buy one because the plan was to go punting on the River Cam. And as anyone who has seen a punt can tell you, you are completely exposed to the elements.
The jacket has become indispensable. As indispensable as the sneakers.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Self learns today that ROY G. BIV stands for the following colors:
This week’s WordPress Photo Challenge involves sharing “an image that contains all the colors of the rainbow.”
Quite Easily Done!
Self has currently been partaking of the glories of the United Kingdom. Naturally, she’s been taking photos like crazy. London and Dublin are extremely colorful places.
A few days ago, self was invited by her friend, poet Joan McGavin, to participate in a demonstration for action on climate change. The gathering took place near Lambeth Bridge on Wednesday, 17 June 2015. Self noticed a young woman wearing the most beautiful jacket. She asked where the woman had bought her jacket. The response: Camden Market. It only cost 20 pounds.
And finally, a shot from the day self spent in Cambridge, visiting ex-classmate Dodo Duterte Stanley:
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Self so loves this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge: MINIMALIST.
Here are a couple more photographs that self thinks relate to that theme (“Sometimes the simplest photographs make the boldest statements.”)
From Beijing Pie House in Monterey Park: silken tofu with century egg in a light soy sauce, garnished with green onions
Blaze Pizza in Pasadena: Doggie “Box”
Another from Blaze Pizza. Would you believe, two toppings, including sales tax = $8.34 ????
One can eat very cheaply, VERY WELL, in southern California. If one knows where to look.
Stay tuned.
Is it just self, or are the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenges becoming increasingly — challenging?
This week’s theme is PERSPECTIVE:
Post a photo which is not what it seems to be.
(Oh. Self doesn’t think her photos are anything other than what they seem to be: shots of a flower market)
But she’s not going to change her post now! Not after she spent so much time choosing the pictures!
Self thinks it’s the use of wide angle on her teensy Nikon Coolpix that makes all the difference: she can move up close, but still get so much peripheral detail into a shot. And in places like the ones she’s been to in the Philippines, the frame is just jammed with detail.
She likes to show people, too. Not posing for the cameras, just getting on with it — work, their daily lives, whatever.
Self went looking for a wreath of flesh flowers she could lay in front of her Dear Departed Dad’s grave.
Here are three other WordPress blogs whose interpretation of this week’s theme, Perspective, self found particularly thought-provoking:
The absolute fun of toy photography — and why I got into it in the first place — is that creativity with perspective is a must. Somehow, you have to make 1″ to 6″ plastic plastic men look like giants.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 