So Much for the Camera Theory

Today, we went back to the little pond park with Grandpa and our uncle. This time, I remembered my camera.

I almost wish I hadn't.

Not only did the eagles return, but they put on a spectacular show. They soared. They dove. They perched right on the water's edge. They screeched. They chased off an osprey. The osprey dove for a fish, and they chased it for the fish. One of them even soared right over my head from a tree I hadn't seen it land in. Even the ducks put on a fine show - they paddled and quacked right under the viewing area. A little stripe-billed gray bird dove for fish almost under my feet. A beautiful blue damselfly kept landing on me.

Later, we went over to a nearby heron rookery. We saw more ducks and a goose. We saw another pair of eagles and a nest. We saw herons building up their rookery. We even, thanks to a chance encounter, saw a Cooper's Hawk nest, complete with roosting Cooper's Hawk.

All of this, I saw while I had my camera with me.

How many shots did I get? How many times did I manage to have the camera out and aimed in the right place at the right time and ready to go? How many pictures came out?

Look at the start of the post. Count.

Yep, even when I had my camera, I could barely manage to get one remotely salvageable shot. The moment I'd have to wipe off my glasses, they flew. When I had to leave to eat lunch with the family, they danced. When I found a vantage point without a tree in the way, they hid.

I swear those birds were laughing at me...

When we finally got home, I happened to glance skyward.

A bald eagle was flying over head.

I heard a pileated woodpecker laugh as I watched it.

Very funny, birds.... veeerrry funny.

Always Bring Your Camera

Today, as we have for most Sundays this year, we went over to Grandpa's for lunch. I brought with me my coat, my car, and my sketchbook and pens. I didn't bring my camera, because for most of these gatherings we've been doing decidedly unphotogenic things (i.e. sitting around in the living room or walking around the yard.) Besides, the weather looked a bit cloudy at home.

Always bring your camera.

At Grandpa's, his front yard was a dazzle of purple hyacinth, with bright fancy tulips finally open after unseasonably cool weather this April. For a change of pace, we went out to KFC for grilled chicken (very good, BTW.) Afterwards, we decided to go to a nearby wetland park. The weather had turned sunny, with an assortment of pretty clouds drifting under a cerulean sky.

Always bring your camera.

I was execting it to be an extension of the usual river park we go to in this area, but it wasn't. It was a large pond in a space between business developments, backed up to a Target and a mattress store and some other outfit.

Always bring your camera.

Here was a tranquil oasis in an overdeveloped valley. Pink-flowering fruit trees covered in blossoms, abuzz with the all-too-scarce-lately drone of bees. Two overlooks looked over a span of blue water and green trees, with drifting ducks dabbling about the shores.

Always bring your camera.

Suddenly, the ducks took off. We wondered why... until we looked up. Right overhead, a bald eagle soard over the pond. It drifted and circled and flapped up to a perch in a nearby tree. Nor was this its only visit... nor was this the only eagle. A pair of them made several forays over the pond, flying from tree to tree. I swear they were taunting me. I lost track of them, however, when a bright flash caught our attention. A hummingbird with a green back, its head and gorget flashing from red to magenta as it flew... yes, at last, after over three decades, I finally saw a mature male Anna's hummingbird. Not twenty feet away from me it hovered, glowing in the sunlight. A beautiful bird, in a beautiful park, on a beautiful day.

And me with nothing to record it with save my memory.

The lesson?

Always, always, always bring your camera!

A Thirst for Words

I haven't been doing much reading for a few months. I can't say I have any real reason, save the usual: other things to do, other crises to handle, no real time to sit down without being bugged by someone or something (or someone and something.) So it came as a relative surprise when, earlier this week, I found myself with some downtime and a book in my hand... and devoured it, cover to cover, in a matter of hours.

The book in question was The Forgotten Beasts of Eld, by Patricia McKillip, a story of love, war, betrayal, and magical beasties with an elder-day flair. Not a recent purchase, I picked it up some years ago and forgot about it until recently. I'd only intended to skim it, maybe read a chapter or two, but before I knew it I'd plowed past the halfway mark and was well on my way to the back cover. It wasn't that I particularly loved the story. In fact, on a scale of one to ten, I'd only rank it about a five or six. It also had little to do with McKillip's writing style. It was simply that I didn't realize until then just how thirsty I'd been for words. I even started dreaming of words again, something I haven't done for a while.

I've been drawing. I've been writing. But I forgot, in the meantime, just how much I needed the occasional dose of reading, of experiencing the joy of letting someone else tell me their story instead of fishing around in my brain to come up with my own. It's the difference between seeing art and making it, or watching travel shows and actually going somewhere. One may think that the doing of it is all that's necessary for fulfillment, but that's not always the case. Sometimes it's just as necessary to take a look outside your own efforts and your own self, to give yourself a break from pushing and creating and struggling and simply escape. It helps keep the fires burning, rather than burning themselves out. (It also helps one see where one's own creative efforts need to go, or should stay away from; in this book's case, it served as a warning against the overuse of flowery language, profound metaphors, and overwrought seriousness in my own writing.)

I'm still doing some writing and sketching, and I'm still poking at my other creative outlets... but I'll try to remember, from now on, to keep a book or two close at hand in case I get thirsty again.

Changing Weather

We've been through a gray and dismal patch of weather lately. It matched the way my life's been going. Over the past few days, things have changed for the better. The rain slacked off. Blue skies broke through. Coats were discarded and sunscreen was reached for. And the mountain was out for two days running.

For non-Western Washingtonians, "the mountain" would be Mt. Rainier. And "out" refers to it being visible, as opposed to being hidden by haze, clouds, or both. (You might not think simple pollution and atmospheric haze could obscure a mountain the size of Rainier, but it can and does.) When the mountain is out, it's a clear day, the kind of day that reminds you why it's worth living in the Pacific Northwest.

Yesterday, we went out to a local woodcarving show. The show was held at an area fairground which also hosts an interactive museum of old-time "stuff," mostly farm equipment. My sister and I had been up to the woodcarving show the day before (Saturday), but on Sunday we went back with the rest of the family, including Mom, Dad, my aunt, my uncle, and my grandfather. We wandered through woodcarvings and poked around in the museum, which proved more entertaining than initially anticipated. Everyone seemed to enjoy the trip, even Grandpa, who isn't connecting with the external world as well as he used to even a year ago, but one of the highlights had to be the drive back home. We take the "long way" back from these particular fairgrounds, a winding stretch of road where farms and fields and tranquil backwaters endure despite encroaching development. Peeking over the Cascades was our old friend, the mountain. Something about the mountain being out makes a pretty day and a pretty drive that much prettier. It's a good, good trip where the ending is just as wonderful as the trip itself.

Today, I saw the mountain at much closer range. When we returned from yesterday's excursion, we had a message on the machine. It was from the car dealership where we bought the Golden Taurus. Something about the financing... I froze. Something had fallen through, obviously. They wanted the car back. I'd be stuck bicycling to work because no bank wants to deal with a loser with no credit rating and only a part-time job to her name. Then I'd lose the job and the bicycle, and wouldn't even have a car to live in. (Okay, so I've been in a bit of a down mood lately...) But, no, wait - they were talking like they might be able to save us some money on the payments, but we'd have to come back into the dealership to sign something. The depressed, paranoid part of me smelled an elaborate trap; they'd lure us down there with the too-good-to-be-true promise of lower monthly payments, then they'd snatch back the keys and laugh at us as we hitchhiked back two counties home. But, what the hey, I wasn't doing much else today, and the dealership was right in the shadow of Mt. Rainier, so it's a nice drive. We'd go down there and see what the deal was.

Today, the weather outdid itself. The sun shone so bright the trees fairly glowed in their fresh green leaves. The air was clear, the sky was blue. And the mountain... that mountain... The unpredictable weather this April left fresh layers of snow on the upper slopes of the Cascades, and when it comes to upper slopes, Rainier is mostly made of them. So as we headed south towards the dealership, we were treated to a spectacular view of the mountain dressed in winter whites under a summerlike sunny sky. If I'd had my camera with me, I'd have tried to pull over off the freeway to snap a photo. It was that beautiful. I hoped against hope it was a Good Sign.

Down at the dealership, things got off to an inauspicious start; the guy who had called us in had just left, and nobody seemed to know if or when he'd wander back. So we sat there for twenty minutes waiting, being mocked by the beautiful day we could've been out enjoying if we hadn't been called in. At long last, the man in question sauntered back from lunch, and we got the story. The first place we'd tried to finance through somehow failed to come through. The dealers, however, kept at it, trying more places. And more places. And more places. At last, they came up with someone willing to take a chance on a puny little loan to someone with no credit (whose cosigner didn't exactly have the greatest credit rating, either, but at least had a credit rating - it seems wrong that banks are more willing to take a chance on someone they know to be a credit risk than on someone they don't know either way about, but I digress...) I'd never heard of the outfit in question, but right now they're my favorite institution in the world. Why? Not only did they take on the financing, but they did so at about half the interest rate of the original lenders... and for nearly 30 bucks less a month. All we had to do was sign some new paperwork and pay five bucks each to start a savings account with them. Done and done - five bucks to save nearly thirty a month is a no-brainer, even for one with as little brain as me.

On the way home, we stopped for a celebratory Peanut Buster Parfait (and lunch, as we were pretty much starving by then.) I hadn't felt like one after we got the car - for some reason, it just didn't seem "real" - but now I figured I officially had something to celebrate. Looks like the Golden Taurus really is here to stay... and it made today look all the more beautiful. Hope the nice weather sticks around awhile...