Glass half full
Optimism!
Nay! Glass half empty. I got sisters in law who believe… Caution! It runs on Colleen’s side of the family.
Cockeyed optimist? … unrealistic. Lately I am consumed by age and decline. My mood has been low… astrologically low as I put it. Step by step, forward, ever forward. It is not so hard to remind myself each day that there is something great to be thankful for. The glass as ever – remains half full!!
We met in the third grade. We sat in desks just like these. I remember sitting in the back of the classroom. We were together in the same class till sixth grade. I sent Colleen a letter (yes, with a stamp) sometime around 2008? She responded but we lost touch once again until…
May 22, 2014
Colleen: As Marty has probably told you, we were talking the other day and your name came up. I told him what I knew of you from the last time we communicated, and gave him your e-mail, hoping it was current. You came only imagine my surprise when he told me you were practicing medicine in Saudi Arabia! One of the last countries I could imagine being in, so now I am exceedingly curious (or read nosy if you prefer).
Why? How? How long?, and anything else you care to tell (or nothing if you like better).
May 21, 2014
From Marty Martin: Colleen and I were talking earlier this week. She mentioned your name and…
Nothing is lost. An email search came up “zero!!” for any email from Colleen at that time in 2014. I never throw anything away! Ha!! Search in an alternate way…
“Nosy” She had me at “nosy!” The rest is history.
Was it but just one day?!? Marty emailed one day. The email was in the trash as I noticed Elkins in the header. I know I hinted heavily and desperately with a flurry of email exchange to get Marty to email Colleen and have her to respond to me. She had cut me off in 2008 and I was not going to send her an email first.
Gee! The things you can find when you go looking?! She came to visit in a whirlwind tour of NYC right as I was planning to move away from NY forever. Maine followed. Colleen had always wanted to visit Maine. NY – nightlife, Indian powwow, West Indian day parade… bright lights and people. It was quite a contrast to WV where life is definitely different from NY.
Yellow sheep, Scotland – different again. Travel. Adventure. Fun. Laughter. …favorite lighthouse? Wyeth? … all fond memories now.
An aside: my digital photography is so different now. Too. Better? I think so. Better camera? Or, better photographer?
This email exchange came on the heels of my first iPhone. David made me get it on my birthday less than a month before. It became the electronic tether for Colleen and I from Saudi to WV.
Oh! oops!
Quickly! Substitute! I need a new post!
I made the same post for two consecutive days. Yesterday and…today – not any more.
Scotland. I happen to be editing Scotland pics:
Sheep rescue. A lamb got out of the enclosure and was loose next to the road. Colleen made me stop the car and she got out and rescued the poor lamb. Happy ending. Its mama was reunited and everyone was happy once more.
Heilan coo – need I say any more about an iconic Scottish symbol?
Castle: another day, another castle….
Puffins: high on a cliff hillside… Colleen hates heights… the things she will do for me! Dots on the water! Just dots! Oh boy… another failed puffin outing. No! Nay! The puffins flock to human proximity. Their enemies the black back gulls are afraid of humans. Who are the puffins more afraid of? … they’d rather be close to humans! That was so good for us!!
Weaving – Dovecot Studio, Edinburgh: Colleen wove the one on the left. Turn it upside down – she wove a field of heather and field of rapeseed with the sun and blue sky. I see it! What skill and imagination… all executed in a few hours’ time. Me? I was happy with some bold color.
It’s the people
Travel. National Geographic. Sights. Monuments.
But the real essence is in the people you encounter. Bag pipes! Wonderful! Madame Curie? Falcon? Kids! And, perhaps, a heilan coo. People, they make the trip personal. We encounter folks in passing. Colleen engages in cultural exchange – ours vs different from our every day. It’s fascinating. New ideas!
Me? I like the cow…
Just for fun
Someone else used to say: shits and giggles. Me? We got to Edinburgh and I resisted the urge to panic as the agent explained the dire consequences of not taking the extra insurance at the rental car counter to the customer in front of me. Colleen was not enamored by the fact that I had to drive on the wrong side of the road in a stick shift manual. Stay left!! Ha ha. Funny to say, it is natural when you are in the “wrong” seat. Nonetheless, I am often accused of being to cavalier… nothing is a problem that cannot be overcome. So far we have not met anyone on the wrong side. Pfewf! … so far so good.
Caution: do not selfie while driving!
One lamb
… akin to a one horse town. It is self catered. Colleen wanted different. She booked us. The last 15 miles or so to the place was on one track road. One track road? It was paved and barely had enough width for a single car. It would be hard with anything wider. The road widens a little in some places for cars to pass one another. There’s a post office! I am amazed the mail shows up in such a tiny place. No complaints. The only real downside is that going anywhere is a long trip on a very narrow that made Colleen very nervous. Two trips so far, two days, we have passed three cars, all on the first night.
Cold and dreary
It’s Scotland. Typical weather. They joke about it. We put on our hats. It’s May. Spring comes late. Thistle is the national flower. Go over the old stone bridge. There are lots. And, visit the stone castle. There are lots awaiting funds to restore them to grandeur. Meanwhile heating is costly – brrrr! Rain? It did not deter our visit to a nearby local waterfall. Alas, no four leaf clover. But, otherwise, a grand day!
Adventure
First day…or is it second? Stone of Scone? This is a replica stone of the one King Charles will be crowned upon. We hiked to Neil Gow’s bench. It was a long hike. We were lost. Neil is a world famous fiddler we never heard of. Colleen saw a picture of the bench in the restaurant and we went on a hike…No complaints. Adventure, new shared memories. I hope we will laugh over them later. For now I am driving on the wrong side of the road in a manual shift…
On a roll
I’m faced with a dilemma. Post while we are on vacation. Or, wait until our return. There will be a lot of imagery I would have posted but waited patiently until our return.
Scotland – wrong side of the road. You can see I am in the driver’s seat from a different perspective. Well, I am jumping the proverbial gun. We are there – 2019. Harris Tweed was the word(s). No doubt our luggage will have souvenirs. We’d have a sheep if Colleen could figure out how to get it thru customs.
Easy
Easy! I was thinking of the yellow sheep we saw in a field. GIGO – garbage in garbage out. Lucky for me I put in the search term into my database and it tooks seconds to find them sheep again. Ok! I love it when science works!
The sheep? We don’t know to this day why they were bright yellow. I even made a puzzle from the picture. Yes a jigsaw puzzle! Ha ha! Big joke on all of us. The answer is straightforward and simple. Right?!
So few?
500k images from 2016 and only 12k in we are in Scotland. What happened the past few years? I shoot a lot. To answer would take more effort than I am willing to invest. I got ways to track this down.
Funny, I don’t wear wool much. I don’t eat lamb much either. And, I never gave a thought to how thread/yarn was made on a machine. Nowadays I pay a lot of attention. It amazes me at what can be done by machine and how much more efficient it be from doing it by hand. It’s a hobby right? Productive? Worth doing it some more? I would not know. I photograph. Colleen spins and weaves. We collaborate. I take her to Scotland. There have been a lot of pictures since these were taken.
AHA! I knew it would come to me… eventually. The two star pics were open and in around 12k were the Scotland picks. It makes sense. I was not too worried about culling my two star images. Mystery solved. No more work for me to do.
Have we?
My writing comes in waves… of inspiration. Really? Am I inspired? Or do I just have lots of thoughts and stories to tell?
Scotland. Did we eat here? Nice play on words. I don’t think we ate there. But? We did eat in a Thai place in Inverness… was this it? Sheep, especially black faced ones are notoriously hard to image. Any backlighting kills detail in the face. Forget focusing on the eyes. The moon? You cannot shoot the moon on “auto” settings. The auto ISO will overexpose the bright moon every time. All manual, I don’t do it often. Clouds?! Made it more interesting? The Scots say takeaway not takeout.
Fun
Looks like… we get out and about. An island full of gnomes. Seal. Defibrillator with instructions confusing enough to stop you in your tracks. Rent a bike. Castle. Foreboding sky. Rain, but of course. We saw this couple in the pub with a pitcher each. Alcohol? Oh boy! Soda? I don’t drink that much. What the…?
It’s not the travel or the location. It is the adventure you have with the one you love. We had a good time. We have good times. We have had good times. We will have good times.
Canceled
Our boat tour of three Scottish islands was canceled for wind and inclement weather. The tour took off from Oban which as you can see was bright sunny and without much wind to see. Lemons? Make lemonade.
Oban is a lovely town to walk and explore and eat a meal. Cullen skink. Don’t ask. We found it in the guidebook and Edinburgh and then we chased it all over Scotland. I just photograph it. We did have an excellent time on a very pleasant sunny afternoon.
The tower is “McCaig’s Tower, also known as McCaig’s Folly, is a prominent tower on Battery Hill overlooking the town of Oban in Argyll,” And yes, we walked to it.
Revival
https://photocriticism.wordpress.com/
Scotland! I owe Colleen a return trip. Our flight was canceled at the onset of the Covid shutdown. It rains a lot in Scotland, hence the same rain jackets throughout. This time we will take more rain gear. The thistle is a Scottish national emblem. Cat? Shhh… not mine. We cannot pass a bookstore without stopping.
Ah! Revival? I have resurrected my old blog site Photocritical. In case you clicked on it in the past… I have recently begun to post there once again. Thank you all who have followed and visited this blog. Meanwhile, I am making a shameless plug for you to have the opportunity to see other photos.
Some day
Will it be me? Us? Old? It’s stockings? Huh?! Yes, live art – it depends upon your pronunciation, or, interpretation – of the word or picture. A jacket – for high tea! And rain gear? Well, it is Scotland, emphasis on IS. My SIL – sister in law, no (gene) relation to me – has affected my behavior in every proper museum since she accused me of being irreverent. Oh! My! Yes!! With pleasure my dear, no names please! Honestly, I never thought I would have so much fun in Glasgow. It was the company!! For sure!!
Anywhere
Grumpy is a state of being. I don’t know how – to be (grumpy). We could be anywhere. Travel puts you in a different location – different from home, but, where? Scotland? We were in the borders, almost England. Cheshire cat? Narrow roadways, barely, no kidding! Barely able to pass a small rental car thru the portal. I went to park the car, so, Colleen never saw me get thru. Right! And now she denies it! The flavor of Scotland was all around us! Ah! The classic red telephone booth has been repurposed. Red,it’s danger, alert! Everyone has a cellphone now. Don’t you? What use is a phone booth?
Trust me? They were very narrow passageways (roads). Me grumpy? Bah, humbug!
Dream
You are going along all happy and content – and – you are hit by a truck. It’s a joke. But. I feel the other shoe is always about to fall. Gloom? Reality? Are we ever really, just happy? I dunno. Escapism?
Colleen’s lifelong dream has been to visit Scotland. We did it! We got here while we were able. We got sidetracked by Covid while planning the return visit. We await for travel restrictions to abate. It was a splendid visit. Tea, golf, sheep, scenery, countryside, city, views, did we miss anything?
I am sure more adventures await with another trip. … happy to say we are following her dream.
It was a good year
I’m a ‘datahead’ a nerd of sorts. It was but a moment ago, Noa was a baby; Colleen and I were in Scotland; my cats doubled in numbers. I have been keeping track of my slides and later digital images from nearly the beginning. First it was index cards and later on a computer. I now use an independent redundant array of external hard drives. It ain’t perfect. About once a year now, I update my yearly database summary. Do you care? … wanna hear?
Digital for me began in 2003. I number 701, 000 digital images in storage now. (Typing “701k” does not look nearly as impressive.) 2021 saw a high of 102k images shot– for the ‘freakin’ year! This spans (over the years) about 15 or more devices (cameras) including iPhone. As I asked, “Who cares?” Well, I do keep track. So, now you know. I shudder to think of how it might be without some “order” to the madness.
Life’s journey has taken me high and low – figuratively as well as literally – from love (lost to found) and to the depths of the Red Sea. Along the way I even took up basket making (#27) – See! Data! Gee!
I love my wife
As I was falling asleep, Colleen said, “I’m not sure you like me anymore.” It’s natural to have worries during a marriage. Nope! I love you!! … to pieces… to the moon and back! Second chances are few. There is a lot I would do differently if I could go back… well, it would have certainly been a different life for the two of us. Maybe all is not blissful all of the time, but, right now in this moment, it is about as close to heaven as you can get on earth. Today is not about great photography (it’s my blog!); it is about memories we have collected in a short time together in places like… Maine and the Butt of Lewis. We met when we were young and reconnected when we were old. Time is short, so, we celebrate anniversaries every month instead of years. Lately, we have sort of let this get slightly forgotten. But today is a “day.” Happy av-en-ursery, my dear.
Well then what’s to be the reason for becoming man and wife? is it love that brings you here or love that brings you life? And if loving is the answer, then who’s the giving for? …
Wedding Song – Peter, Paul, and Mary
Travelogue
Why do we travel? To get away from our own everyday routine. See something new and different. And while we are gone we seek out familiar things from home. Dinner in a Chinese restaurant… in Scotland: the food looks familiar; the dinners eat with fork and spoon, or knife; the grocery carries mustard, mayo, and Spam!; a picture to match the post card. Yes, you can go to dinner wearing a genuine Harris tweed vest. Travel is about same and, not. We have not been able to travel in a couple years – Covid. The world will be upside down a bit longer. A couple years back right at this time we were here!? It seems so long ago. So much has changed. Don’t worry, my dear, we will be back.
Jumbled
I’m spinning the photo catalog today. Originally, I had intended to publish one picture a day of “ooh and ah!” quality along with a story. Lately, it’s been about the stories triggered by the images. Technically, it still fits the title of the blog, but we are a long way off. I’ve been on a lot of planes. The middle top pic is instantly recognizable. Colleen hates to fly. She goes because she does not trust me alone? ?? Dunno? Ha! The first thing we did upon arrival was seek a vegetarian restaurant. It’s very appetizing – if you’re a rabbit. And she got a bottle of organic beer. Isn’t all that beer vegetarian and organic to begin with? I think maybe I would have rather been in the pakora place next door. But, it is now revealed Colleen doesn’t care for Indian. Damn, so far and yet so close. Figuratively, literally, you do the math and take your pick of the choices here in my words. The truth: We have fun. Anywhere is good as long as I’m with Colleen. Happiness is…
I made this
Ha ha. We are in a puzzle stage. Puzzle? Yes, we are making puzzles to pass the time. And after the last one – not pictured – (ha ha) I decided to design one myself. Online, they do everything. I found a website. They made a picture into a puzzle. It worked out as well as any other puzzle we have. Yes, it’s a flock of yellow sheep. We came across this group while traveling in Scotland. I’m not name dropping or bragging. It’s just: this is not something you see every day. In the background (did you peek?) there’s my nutty cat. He climbed to the top of the bookcase and leaped down. Ha ha, I made you peek.
Torn
Somedays. It is, indeed, a strange world out there. After all my complaint about iPhone, Colleen and I made this shot up in a restaurant. The price of gas – fluctuates. It has been as high as $2.70 around here. When the oil market collapsed it was a low as $1.71. I’m at the end of the line, a so-called end-user. I don’t get to speculate for barrels of oil on the open market. Price? That’s Scotland, price per liter: we are so privileged. Surreal – a la Dali.
I’m torn between truth and reality. Aren’t they the same? Ummm, surely you jest!?
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