Oh Oh Bee

so- working with the kids in the young digital photographers class is fun- they challenge my music, make me feel old, and are the impetus for our trips around the state of Maine. The recent acquisition of a digital camera should make my posts a bit better than the usual bitching about this and that.

Here are my images from Old Orchard Beach Maine- also known as O.O.B. to those of us in the know....

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Moments from Maine

Talking everyday may shorten the distance from E. Still, the phone pales in comparison to being near him, really talking to him and hearing him. I can hardly contain my excitement that he found an awesome deal on a digital camera this week...and got it! (yeah, I'm "outting" you, E!) Film or digital...his images are always a part of him. And, him sending those images to me are like little pieces of him--the beautiful things that I miss about him. So, I'm sharing these "notes"... they are moments...they're as close as I can be for another 29 days.

Central Market: full of empty

It may seem strange that this post is full of empty storefronts. But, to tell the truth, that is the point. And, these are for my boy, far away in Maine (not exactly lovely images of fog covered harbors or dusty light-filled carriage houses...hopefully inspirational nonetheless....)

Rebooted

Continuing the free spree, today I visited the SF Botanical Garden. This place... wow this place... what a treasure! It has become, hands down, my favorite place in the city. It even beats out REI and Chinatown (of course, those are much more fun with my boy is in town...but he makes everything better!) Visiting the garden today was refreshing. It was almost like the feeling after a hike... getting out of town...losing yourself in the trees and variety of life and feeling like, in some distant but real way, that I am a part of all that. The families of plants and their distant relatives spread all across the globe are phenomenal to see gathered here. And, tucked away in the Golden Gate Park, this little gem, quiet and unmonumental beside its new neighbors, the deYoung and the California Academy of Sciences, rebooted my system. (I apologize for my inability to edit the number of pics... it was just too much fun to run around with the camera!)

In New Zealand... here you see the New Zealand Christmas tree to your right

And here you see one of its hanging branches...looks like capillaries...

And then I looked down... sometimes the gathering of fallen flowers was much nicer than the living ones on the plants...

Or even those plants that refuse to limit their lives to borders... this is in "Africa"

Also, in Africa...

And here we are in Chile, checking out the crazy varieties of hanging flowers...

Even something that looks like an enormous squash blossom... this bloom was about 8" long, by the way!

The marsh between the Cloud Forest, Africa and East Asia was a pleasant surprise...

And, in East Asia there were blossoms everywhere... I kind of dig the "ruins" that have been placed throughout... seemingly kitschy... but surprisingly non-disruptive...

bananas!

loved the color of this bamboo... so soft and unexpected...

kind of like the Botanical Garden itself.

Battling sides and foggy rides

So, SF for Free? No, really. It's true. I found three things to do with my Saturday... and get this... they were ALL free! Take that, SF! First, I rode the lil' Milano over the bridge again this weekend, but I turned to go down to the bay before I got to Sausalito this time. Instead, I made a day of Fort tours: Fort Baker (on the Marin side) and then Fort Point (on the SF side). Both were stupid crowded, but I managed to find some overlooked spots that were way more fun. It's definitely tourist season here in San Francisco (despite the fact that it's cooler now than it is in October and November), and the battleground seems to still be the protection of the bay from intruders. In the presence of the concrete bunkers at Fort Baker, I couldn't help but think about the aggression I had just witnessed on the bridge: all those "happy," "real" cyclists vs. the gazillion rent-a-bikes. Yes, those quotations marks, though obnoxious, are necessary. You see, while I might find myself somewhere between those doofus tourists on the rent-a-bikes and those "real" dedicated cyclists (perhaps a little closer to the former than the latter), I, too, found myself getting a little frustrated with the swervy chicks and dudes on that windy narrow pathway. Still, because I'm not so far from swervy myself sometimes...I feel their awkwardness and uneasiness... and, really... I wonder if so many of these dedicated cyclists have to point out that the rent-a-bikers are not so stable and sort of in the way? As if the rent-a-bikers couldn't tell by the "get-up" and fancy bikes that their opposition is serious about riding... yeah, that's right, mocking, snarls and jeers... wow. You go, cool, laid-back NorCal. Nevertheless, I puffed my way back and forth, did my best to pay attention and had an awesome time (just turned the music up and put my head down)... me and my lil' Milano.

Fort Baker:

Fort Point:

under the bridge

Just look at that smile... so happy I use her for more than just commuting!

The Ferry Building on the Embarcadero....

I probably would have never gone here if it hadn't of been for the exhibition of a recent competition we entered...

it's actually pretty slick on the inside...

The motherland (sort of...)

Part of growing up in a Navy family is knowing that the reasons your family is the way they are has little to do with where you are living and much more about where your parents started out. Those damn potatoes at every single dinner, chowder and cabbage in the winter, more potatoes and white bread, keeping the house ass-cold in the winter, being grumpy but loving, LL Bean catalouges always showing up full of funny looking people resembling Bob Newheart in his Vermont based sitcom. The cultural palimpsest characterizing communities large and small all over the country seldom make sense to kids.

Most of you reading will know my back story but for the new family I'll give you the quick breakdown:
Mom and Dad are from Thomaston and Rockland Maine where the family continues to reside in the form of aunts, uncles, cousins, grand parents, and the resting members of our past.

Dad got drafted for the IndoChina/Viet Nam "conflict" and married mom to keep her close...
They moved to DC and from what dad says- he was in the Pentagon when the "dirty hippies" stormed it- history will tell...anyway

They ended up in southern Virginia and along came me!!! Portsmouth Naval Hospital wast the sight of my birth and thus the site of my first screaming tantrum...the first of sooooo many...

We moved to Norfolk Virginia until I was around 13, then Virginia Beach til I was 16...
It was at this point that my father was 39 and decided to retire (just a short reality check- I just turned 38!)

We moved to Maine and in hindsight- home.
This summer I am in the same county that my family has been in for generations, we have traced the English side to coming over in 1612...and to Maine some years later.
I have found (serendipity is an odd beast) a Finnish Congregational church that my great grandfather Edde Johnson helped build, the same places I wandered, and a new sense of history.
More of that as it comes.
Here are some images I made while my classes do their work...
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thanks to Gretta for everything- sorry to the rest of you- I'm holding on tight to the wonderful lady!The Underside of Port Clyde, Maine...a remote harbor town at the end of a peninsula. Interestingly- the tide rises so high that this view is only there at low tide.

The Olson House in Cushing, Maine. Everyone wants to recreate the view in Christina's World by Andrew Wyeth, this is the wagon used in many of his paintings. The house was great but over photographed to a crazy level...

Again- the less often view of a familiar spot. This is a worn door in the barn that has the markings of a rope blown in the wind...that marking in the center of the door just called out to me...wonderful details abound!

Harrison Point harbor at the head of Cushing, Maine. The remnance of an old steam ship's containers...
It was a wild 10 min. dance out to this on wet sea weed and rotting wooden planks (again- only at low tide) Who knows what the tops are going to look like til you climb up to see!

Ropes. Worn, colorful, Maine. Love it!

The harbors are filled with crazy things at low tide...note the green of the steel in the front- algea and slime...who else but native eyes can love this crap? Well- this transplant Maine-iac, thats who.