The Turquoise Lady

We went for an early morning photo walk through La Jolla, without wallets - past some of the most expensive shops in this part of Southern CA. When a jewelry store finally opened I browsed several silver and stone bracelets and fell in love with one. Joking about Mother's Day made the decision and Brock left to walk several blocks for a wallet and credit card.

While waiting, I talked with Olga, 57, the owner who told me (with a thick Italian accent), she met her American husband 40 years ago, moved to the US and travels frequently back to Italy to see her Mom, ". . . still a tough old woman", she laughed. "You know my husband too is so nice like yours", she added. "When he sees I really like something, he wants very much for me to have it."

Olga has owned upscale jewelry shops i n Newport Beach, Portland and Palm Desert - but now wants to stay indefinitely in La Jolla where "the weather is perfect!" She glanced at my camera and was excited to tell me about her new adventures with photography. She pulled out a tiny Lumix 10X digital and showed me some recent photos she'd taken of jewelry that just seemed to hang freely in an all white space.

Excitedly she picked up a heavy piece of funiture to put a large white cloth wrapped box on it.

She told me how she constructed the thin wooden frame (with lumber from Ace Hardware) and shopped at Wal*Mart for the white satin fabric. Using a staple gun she assembled the covered box which she moved around to show me the various lights from her open back door.

Placing a neckless in the box, she proudly demonstrated how her mini photo lab worked and handed me a business card to her website: http://www.turquoiselady.com/

She also told me about the colorful birds that land in the trees out her back door and her new photo collection of them as they sing in the branches.

And my new bracelet (my photo just on plain paper with kitchen light).

Henry Hog & Dissatisfied Dave

San Diego: Henry Hog gets to follow his master out to the fishing pier in the mornings . . . better than where he was a year ago even if he does kinda get tangled, tied under the benches. His owner tells me: "Whyyyy he's a 25 pound over weight beagle - that's what he is!" when I ask his breed.


Dave goes on to tell me he rescued Henry Hog from the dog pound a year ago when they were giving 5yr olds and older, away for free one week. He said he was adopted for a few days, then returned - but originally owned by a bed bound person who only fed him human food, "Tacos and burgers", he added.

Dave said he used to raise beagles when he was 13, so he knows the breed well and has promised Henry he'll never give him up. He says Henry Hog is a crazy one though, he would starve rather than eat dog food. Henry Hog hummed, whined and wiggled a lot while we talked.



Dave then told me how bad the economy is, how corrupt politicians are, how his best friend has to schedule everyday of the week (and can't fish on Thursdays) and how everyone is wrong about the baby grey whale that's been living in our bay this week.



Dave knows the whale lost his mother and is obviously very sick even though the experts say it's perfectly normal a young grey (old enough to be on its own) would explore our bay on its migration north . . . sigh . . .

Suzie and Harold the Indian - Pinos Altos, NM

Suzie owns a little country store in Pinos Altos, NM - up in the mountains from Silver City. I'd guess 300 people live in the little rural settlement. Suzie used to live in Encinitas, CA and came to the "hills" when her mom and dad got ill.



Harold (a wooden Indian) sits in the end seat at the cafe counter. Suzie says he was carved by a local Indian craftsman. I moved carefully by him at first, thinking he was just a quiet person who needed a little time alone.


Suzie went back to peeling a huge pile of potatoes for the red chili stew she was making - the strong smell totally filled the cafe. She talked with us about the special silence - a different way the air feels and sounds in the NM mountains. She talked about the lack of crime and her amazement with the retired folks moving to the mountains who build 5,000+ sq ft houses in the woods.


Then we talked of "stuff" and how so many of us at this age want to downsize and simplify our lives. When her parents died within months of each other, Suzie took everything - a lifetime of their "stuff" and not being able to deal with it, stored it in her home. It's been 5 yrs now and she's trying hard to understand our need to hang onto things as if they were memories to never forget.

Sunshine & Ian

Dayton, Tennessee:

Jus' passin' on through - First we met Sunshine. She came dashing over to us when she saw we parked near the funky green houseboat she calls home. She's 8 months old and tried to be fierce, barking aggressively at us - but when I told her sharply . . . "Hey! none of that! we're friends!" . . . she immediately melted, wagged her tail, started dancing around us and wanted to play as we leaned over to pet her.

Her owner - Ian, put her in his pickup while we talked. He explained how he found Sunshine in the parking lot, a tiny 5 wk old skinny bundle of puppy, abandoned - a "drop off" he called her. Not wanting a dog - his emotions gave way though, when that first day she sat on the gang way to his boat without moving for 2 hours.

With easy movement and a friendly southern drawl, Ian first answered my questions about what's it like to live on a houseboat on a small Tennessee river - "Great!". Being a boat mechanic, he waved his hands at all the other houseboats and said, "I've worked on and fixed all of'em". He went on to describe how he's rebuilt everything on the junked green boat he found - that it only needs an engine now, all the other systems (water, waste, heat) are in great working order . . . and being divorced, he now has a girl friend who shares his dream of owning a 65 foot barge, loading it with his truck and all their belongings and boating down to Pensacola, Florida to live in the warmth.

Ian said he needs the warmth now because he sounds like a 'bucket of bolts' in the cold Tennessee mornings - all his joints crack and creak, mainly his knees and legs because of a horrendous motorcycle accident - hitting diagonal RR tracks during the first few minutes of a rain - remembering only keeping his legs together as he flew off and slid feet first towards a guard rail.

Waking up in the hospital days later with 2 broken legs and other fractured bones - a cop stood over his hospital bed writing a ticket for riding without a helmet. Weeks later when he could walk, he took the officer into the field where he finally landed. They searched and searched and eventually found his helmet that saved his life, cracked in half like an egg in the back and only held together by a thin piece under the chin.

Lucky to be alive, he got out of that ticket!

Beale St. Memphis, TN

At night he drives a totally lit, twinkling and blinking horse drawn Cinderella coach up and down Beale Street in Memphis. There's a sleeping dog named Gypsy under the blanket by his lap, his "best girl", he said.

When he heard about our 16,000 mile road trip, he told us about driving to Alaska and back (from North Carolina) with his parents when he was younger -an amazing drive with hundreds of memories.

Not at all hustling us to buy a ride, he pulled a old worn piece of paper out of his wallet, handed it to me and said a drunk in a bar once told him if he ever made it to New Zealand, he had to be sure to visit:

*Christchurch
*Queenstown
*Dunedin
*Invercargill
*Milford Sound

Holding his creased, thin paper of dreams, seeing those five places I visited scribbled on paper, sure brought back wonderful memories for me too. Then he talked of trying to get work in New Zealand - maybe driving a truck.

Hard Core XXX - read on!

There's a tiny ferry dock (with a waiting room hut) on Cousin's Island near Yarmouth, Maine.




This is the official looking boarding gate.



And motoring in the bay close by, I noticed 2 men on a barge working with the mooring buoys and their long underwater chains that keep them anchored.



After he got off the barge, I asked Bill Reagan about the work. I didn't expect the scientific explanation he gave me about the preservation of the equipment and their interactions with the corrosive salty sea water.

Bill (Yale educated) told me until the past few years, he's been a prep school biology teacher (as well as his wife). Now he works for a marine company and also does TV ads (The Crocodile Man) for the local NBC station.

When I mentioned Ron from Rockland, Maine (WRFR FM radio/environmental report) who I met a few weeks ago (see a previous Nov. 19th blog entry here), Bill started laughing and told me his own WRFR FM radio station story . . . that the man who started that small local station way back in the 1970's, became a local icon who had an amazing talent for turning on the local lobster fishermen to . . . -guess again- . . . classical music. Bill added, "You know, not that elevator stuff - but the real deal".

Long before NPR ever offered classical music in the area, WRFR was unfortunately bought out by larger forces and the locals (including the fishermen) were horribly saddened to lose that bit of culture they had grown to appreciate - plus the esteemed, intellectual DJ/station founder who made it all possible.

Well, during the purchase and take over, Bill Reagan (a student at the time) working as a plumber with others, was hired to fix things at the radio station. One job needed to be done through a back closet and as Bill opened the old jammed door - completely packed, floor to ceiling stacks of XXXX hard core porn of all types came tumbling down . . . spilling smut over everything and everyone!

Kids they were then - with WIDE eyes and they couldn't stop laughing as they looked - as the very prim and proper Mr. Classical DJ was - yes . . . of course . . . out of *that* closet now!

Eye Catching Buoys of Sorrento, Maine

I saw the unusual Christmas colors of these lobster buoys and wondered about them.

Fortunately the lobster fisherman who owned them was nearby. He told me he's had those colors since he was 3 years old - that his dad (also a lobster fisherman) registered those colors for him - telling him, "As soon as you can be on my boat without wetting your pants, you can have your own colors".

He added, "My poor parents - it took a good year longer to potty train my sister, because she wasn't interested in boats, lobsters or buoys".

Ron from Rockland, Maine

We've been wandering the working lobster docks along the coast of Maine since we first drove in from New Hampshire 11 days ago.

Many of the docks are old, smelly, strangely quiet and piled high with unused lobster traps.

Today we met Ron, the first person we've seen on the docks in days. Ron told us he has a weekly radio show on WRFR/93.3fm out of Rockland, called: 'The Penobscot Bay Report'.


Every Thursday he reports on environmental issues. Today he said he was just "Checking on the lobster business" - one that has been recently so affected by the slow economy and a glut of cheap lobster available from Canada.

Before the wind blew too hard and the air got too frigid, Ron answered many of our questions - that lobster fishermen can earn upwards of $200,000 . . . that cams lowered into the water have recently revealed the lobsters climb freely in and out of those rusty cages, they don't actually get trapped by the funnel shaped holes . . . that the local herring (lobster bait) is being fished out and could soon cause serious problems for the Maine lobster business . . . and that the Australians tested using strips of cow hide for bait but their main market, the Japanese gourmet, didn't like slicing open their freshly boiled lobster for dinner and finding fuzzy chunks of cow hide inside that lobsters can't digest.

The Rooster of Lordsburg, NM

On a very desolate stretch of I-10 just east of the Arizona border is Lordsburg, New Mexico. With nothing but dry desert as far as one can see, there's a small NM Vistor Center huddled by the side of the freeway.

A pet exercise area is offered with two signs next to the parking lot. A third sign but a few feet away warns, "Beware of Rattlesnakes".

Gordon is a volunteer at the visitor center and has been protecting and guarding Harvey the rooster for a year now since he was abandoned in the parking lot, left behind when a RV drove off without him.

Gordon offers lots of stories about Harvey to anyone who will listen . . . how Harvey was nearly dead he was so starved . . . how Harvey eats a special mix of food that Gordon buys for him each week . . . how Harvey can be coaxed out of the bushes for visitors who want to take his photo.

After Memorial Day, May 2007

Other than a photo in a newspaper, I've never seen a National Cemetery decorated for Memorial Day.

Yesterday (Memorial Day) we discovered you couldn't get within miles of the Cemetery. The crowds here in San Diego had the narrow single access road along the ridge of Point Loma - a total stand still, a parking lot that barely moved. We abandonded the try.

I headed back to the Cemetery early the next morning and found myself completely alone with graves as far as I could see. Over the acres and acres of gently rolling fields, every grave was marked with a single small American flag.

Within an hour workers started the long walk, pulling up flags. Thomas told me there are 90,000 graves/90,000 flags and though it will take hours for his crew to pick them up, there are so many volunteers (mainly Boy and Girl Scouts), that all 90,000 are placed right before Memorial Day in 45 minutes!

Sex with Richard

Yesterday Richard posted an ad with our local Freecycle group, offering kumquats 'free for the picking!' I responded as quickly as I could and was invited to his home to pick fruit in his back yard.

The morning sun was warm and inviting, shining soft light on all the fruit trees he has planted since buying his beautiful La Jolla home 25 years ago. Richard told me he retired as an engineer after 35 years, last year. Walking towards the almost totally orange (with fruit) kumquat tree, I noticed a tree I've never seen before.

Richard explained it's a Chilean fruit tree. The unfertilized tree makes tiny unappealing fruit, but fertilized (when the seed grows properly), the fruit is large, juicy and sweet. The problem growing the tree in San Diego is that the only insect (a tiny moth) that fertilizes the tree, doesn't exist in California.

Richard went on to explain how he uses a soft paint bush at night to move through the branches, brushing the tiny flowers - spreading the pollen to go forth and multiply.

Tree Travellers, Drew & Shannon

I parked by the bay under the shade of a tree and was totally surprised to hear large bird sounds in the branches above. Drew was up high - very busy tying ropes, looping straps, hanging a backpack and trying to set/turn on a small plastic motion sensor dangling in the breeze.

He explained to me they intend to travel through Asia - "Maybe sometime in the next 2 years". He added, "Because it's so dangerous in those 3rd world countries, we've already purchased our tree hammocks to sleep in each night".

They plan to climb high into trees every evening, install their parachute thin hammocks high in the branches under the stars and hang all their belongings with them. Because Drew travels with expensive things and doesn't want to get robbed, he's working with an outdoor light sensor, to set it for any motion at the base of their trees.

Shannon was as quiet, calm and patient as Drew was busy, anxious and a bit frustrated. Shannon held long cords, moved around as instructed and kept setting her cell phone timer as Drew tried to get the sensor to work.

Shannon told me, they've come from Humbolt, CA where they met. She works as a nanny and Drew works as a juggler on various boardwalks around San Diego beaches. Shannon is learning juggling and seemed pleased to share she'll soon start performing with him.

Reynaldo, his art and his puppy Furullis

The brightly painted RV caught my eye.

Reynaldo and several friends were enjoying the warm sunshine, sitting in their lawn chairs with an 8 week old puppy chewing shoe laces.

When they saw my camera, they kidded it would cost me $20 for photos and if I wanted the puppy's photo, that would be an additional $15, please.

Reynaldo told me he paints all the time and never took a single art course. He added that he especially loves painting faces from photos.

He was excited to pull portraits out of his RV and tell me who they were. He asked if I might have some portrait photos I would like painted.

Armed and with a statistics degree from UC Berkeley too

(June 2005) - I met Helen (in her mid seventies) at the Lochsa Lodge (Idaho) registration counter (Lewis & Clark Hiway #12/ 60 miles west of Missoula, MT) as I sought a cabin for the night too.

Unpacking our vehicles in the muddy parking lot, we learned from each other that we drove the exact same picturesque route from McCall, ID that soaking rainy day, were road tripping alone from CA, were the youngest daughter in a dysfunctional family of 3 females and raised only sons.

Later that evening and the next day during a delightful early breakfast together, I met Tara, her 90# furry traveling companion and learned Helen often tent camps on her road trips, but never without her 45 Magnum pistol under her pillow. She added she's licensed and it's a must for the 240 acre cattle ranch she owns alone in northern CA. She said just flashing the holster is usually enough to discourage would be trespassers.

She then shared with me how her husband died of brain cancer at 41 and how she added a teaching degree to her statistics degree to raise 4 sons by teaching elementary school. Whew!

A First Book and Baby

In a San Marcos coffee shop Michelle's fingers fly over her keyboard, tapping in triple time. She takes a break after working all morning and tells me she's writing her first book. She started in January (took 3 months off for morning sickness) and has 100 pages done now. She proudly tells me about the agent she already has.

Her husband totally supports her writing - she writes everyday now having quit her job. Together they built a beautiful writing center for her in their new home but trying as hard as she can, she totally can't write there. "There's just too many distractions", she offers.

She's on schedule to finish her first draft by the end of the year because after that she's planning for another first - a February baby.

Floating for Bass

Mike (foreground) found his fishing raft mismarked in a sporting goods store. They rang it up for $27.00 so he gave his old one (in the background) to his friend. Mike (from N.J.) likes to fish every chance he can get. He just got out of the Marine Corps - he and his wife can't believe California weather. They've decided to make San Diego their permanent home now.

Mike's dad worked in a fish market in N.J. and hated to fish. He was always begging his dad to take him fishing. He fishes for bass today - catches them, likes to look at them, sometimes even takes photos and then throws them back in. He uses live bait that swim in a yellow bag floating by his right side.

The full body neoprene waders he wears keeps him dry in the water. He says you really have to clean them out well though or they smell like dirty sneakers in no time at all. He paddles and steers with large bright blue scuba flippers on his feet.

He said in the spring the carp get so big and territorial that they constantly bump into your legs. He said if he caught some trout, he might keep those to eat though.

Squeaky Clean

Bike riders casually roll by and patrons relax outside with their afternoon coffee on tables by the sidewalk.

Inside, an energized man climbs up on the window seats, soaps down the huge glass windows and then reaches for his giant size squeegie. With headphones firmly in place he bops, gyrates, dances and sings to music only he can hear.

The glass becomes crystal clear. He works amazingly fast.

A laptop, an iPod & a newspaper

As I sat quietly reading and writing in my favorite coffee shop, I was surprised to look up and see a Channel8 newsman filming a woman working on her laptop. After he filmed her from several angles, he gave her an iPod and told her to pretend to use it. Lastly he gave her a newspaper and covering the small table with it, he asked her to pretend to read the articles.

He explained to those of us who were curious - that within the next year, Channel8 will be completely high definition and all his stock footage will unusable. As he and his model were leaving, he told us he had enough similar projects to last for months.

Fallen Tombstones

I stopped to take photos of their Halloween decorations. A little red headed boy raced outside when he heard my jeep by his curb. He was too shy to look at me, he busied himself by propping up some cardboard tombstones that had fallen down, keeping his back to me.

He raced back to his front door when I was about to leave. He got up his courage, turned around to face me and posed briefly for a quick photo before I shouted, "Good-bye and Happy Halloween!".

Painting the Outdoors Outdoor

William paints outdoors with house paints (donated). The trees rustle behind him and late afternoon light plays on the ground where he's scattered lumber from the scaffolding he built. His canvas is a 10' x 30' free standing wall.

Neighbors have requested he add certain animals and plants (a deer, a bunny, woodpeckers, mushrooms) and he'll add those details with more expensive acrylic paints later.

He's far from San Diego, in the hills - at the end of a short dirt road with cabins for rent on both sides. He's hoping the property owners will pay him something for his time and effort. He's hoping this project will get him back into his art that he abandonded 30 years ago.

William walks with a limp and a twist. He's on disability and very depressed about it. Four years ago doctors did exploratory brain surgery looking for a tumor (that didn't exist) and the scar tissue caused him to have multiple sclerosis.

Every few minutes William would walk away from sketching in rocks by the side of the stream, to see how things looked from afar.

He's worried how he'll be able to paint when the weather in the hills gets cold. He had to stop working for 3 months during the summer due to heat.

William told me about collecting images. He cuts them out from books, magazines, posters - everywhere and has an extensive filing system to keep them. He uses them for ideas and references.

Someone's Lunch

Today I watched a man behind the oyster bar use a small narrow sharp knife to pry open rough lumpy ugly oyster shells. The meat was wet, gooey and puddled in the half shell, being readied for a lunch order.

What I didn't realize is that oysters sitting whole in that pile on ice, are still alive! He explained with a heavy Mexican accent that - "they die when I split the shells apart".

He worked fast, opening one quickly after another. He placed them artistically on a large dinner plate decorated with lettuce and small bowls of sauce.

I asked if they ever wiggle with a little life when the plate is being served. I had no idea raw oysters were that fresh. He said, "Yes, sometimes they wiggle when you sprinkle lemon juice on them!"

Riding the Bomb

An older couple walked in and sat at a table in the small rustic cafe (Aspendell, CA near Bishop) where I was the only occupant for lunch.

We got to talking and I learned he was 84, they had been married 61 years. Since she came from a family of 21 (2 mothers, the first one died) and he from a family of 10, they never felt the need to have children. Both were sharp, quick and fun to talk with.

He told me they lived in Las Vegas for 35 years, where he travelled 108 miles ONE WAY to work everyday!

They've retired in Bishop now, returning after 50 years, where he worked in the mines in the 1940's. He proudly told me he was "a supervisor though" in Las Vegas. He worked at the atom bomb testing site in Nevada and once headed a small crew that needed to be lowered 5,000 ft into the ground, through a 3ft diameter shaft to a live atom bomb that had been dropped into the underground chamber.

The bomb was live, but the wires got damaged in the lowering. His job was to disconnect/reconnect every thing properly. {{{{{{oh....}}}}}}

He said for many years he was unable to tell anyone what he did, or to travel out of the US. He told me the government pays for extensive medical checkups every 6 months to monitor his health from the radiation, but he feels fine and never goes in, or "bothers with that stuff". He added as I was leaving, "You know, they tested a lot more than just atom bombs in those days . . . "

A Coffee Shop Patron

A Compaq and a Dell face each other, lid to lid offering quiet tapping sounds across a wide old oak table. The low late afternoon sun creeps through the front window, finds another table and lights up an Arrowhead water bottle with bright silver sparkles.

A chocolate lab tied up outside pokes his nose hard into a woman's crotch when she moves close to greet him and the whirrr of the blender behind the shop's counter mixes something tasty for someone springing several dollars more than just $1.25 for a "Small, medium blend, please."

A stranger snores quietly in the old soft sofa.

Slovenly Sofa Sneak

Driving by this upholstery shop I saw the reward sign propped up in front. Wouldn't you have stopped too, to find out the story? A man inside working on furniture told me the customer's sofa was briefly left out in front of the shop. When they came back from working behind the building, the sofa was gone.

He pointed to a multicolored blue and brown pile of sofa cushions, looked glum and said, "That's what it looks like, those are its cushions. We haven't told the owner yet".