I have to remember to look up.  There they were.  We walk that way often.  Above us, bright in the late morning sun, something new.  So like pea-pods.   And the pure white bleached flower, almost as intense as the sun itself.   Dancing nonchalantly in the wind, tantalizing and taunting, and very tricky to photograph with just a phone camera.  But here they are, for you, courtesy of our desert-meets-the-ocean climate.

Love the drama.  The dark clouds rarely mean rain here, but it has been just a bit cooler today.

“Now the day is over, night is drawing nigh, shadows of the evening drift across the sky…when the morning wakens, then may I arise, pure and fresh and sinless, in Thy holy eyes.”

We sang that at summer camp, followed by “Day is Done” and then a cheerful “Good night!”  No matter what had happened that day, all was well when we sang.  Camp was not always happy for me, as I was neither athletic nor socially adept, but every day finished with that wonderful group singing around the campfire to settle into, and that singing time remains a happy memory.  Would that we could all sing together around the campfire every night…

I never thought that I would see…well, anyway, I have no idea what this one is, but its magenta blooms are amazing.  It was hazy today, though, so the sky isn’t doing blue so strongly.  Would have made a nice contrast.

We’ve had lots of haze during the recent heat and humidity, and look forward to cooler autumn days, and maybe even some rain.  Real rain and not these brief teasing drizzles?  I’d welcome the sound of raindrops on my roof!

Have I used these before?  I can’t remember.  Sometimes I go through old images and one just pops out.

These seem so stamped into the sand, almost like a cookie cutter was wiggled onto the surface.  The small lines at the left corners of each footprint add to the sense of motion.   Onward!

This is a new piece I recently completed for a members challenge at Visions Museum.    Curves/waves/shoreline — interpreted by this would-be mathematician using actual and invented French Curves. Remember those from geometry or drafting or drawing classes fifty years ago?

These mini-quilts are fun to compose and make; this one has a paper background with inks and stitching; the curves themselves are batik fabric; the outline stitching is machine buttonhole; and there is stenciling over some of it, too.  Mixed-media rules!

It’s not just the image, but what it conjures up in ideas and words. This feels carved, etched, carefully inscribed.  The shadows and the the richness of the reddish-brown provide depth.  The plane feels tilted and you can feel yourself climbing up the beach, just as the waves did to leave this pattern in their wake as they withdrew.  With-drew.  Would that I could draw so gracefully!

It’s uncomfortable to look at, isn’t it?  I took a piece of an old image,  then enlarged it beyond the capacity of the camera.  I wondered how it would feel.

It feels…sad, somehow.  Like trying so hard and not quite getting there.  Like looking out of the corner of your eye.  Like looking through the rain, or plastic wrap, or fog.  Like it was before you got your corrective lenses.  Wonder what we’d see of the world, of our neighbors, of ourselves, if we could see clearly.

the trees are beautiful against the sky just after sunset.  I love the quality of the light at this time of the evening.

We went to Costco to get a few (ha!) things and also do some walking.  Both missions accomplished.  There are no indoor malls around here for walking after dark; this is the second time we have gone to Costco for this purpose.  Of course, it’s always tempting; Costco is great at creating desire where there was none.

At the lagoon.  A new combination.  Well, maybe.  There aren’t too many new combinations.  The lagoon vegetation is partly wild and partly cultivated.  Even the cultivated part isn’t very, though.  There are piles of brush that turn out to be dead shrubs, scraggly growth here and there, and patches of color in the midst of dead, tangled branches, with the water always there in the background: the lagoon to the south and east and the ocean to the west.  It makes for a pretty nice walk.

Well, nearly. The beach/ocean/sky in the morning continues to intrigue me.  The nearly invisible horizon, the blending of colors, and that glimpse of blue-sky-to-come should get me out there earlier in the day.

Maybe I just need a ‘flat white’ to go with it.  I discovered, very late to the party, the flat white espresso drink while in London a year ago.  Stronger than a latte (less milk) and of a different texture (not foamy, milk not as hot, thus richer) — I really liked it.  Should figure out how to make it at home.  The frothing gadget is just too much fun, though!   Ask the ocean to stop making waves?

Another evening shot that feels moody and fuzzy and soft.  Concert (Glenn Miller –  style band) and picnic in the park.  We danced for half an hour.

So, feather your nest, feather in your cap, birds of a feather…you could have knocked me over with a feather!

Barely there.  Looks like a very old photo.  Before we had all the fancy equipment we have now.

I’ve taken better photos at night, but there is something alluringly spooky about this one.  I cut these rosebushes way back, and I guess that’s just what they wanted, because they are blooming profusely now.

And back to the sky, with a corner of palm tree just so you know where we are.  Bad photo composition, but it tickles me, and perhaps it tickles the ‘X’ too.  Perhaps even tickled pink?

Another in the series of sun-bleached, wind-scrubbed brush that’s so prevalent around here.  We walk through some unmanicured areas on our way to the lagoon, and the trees in their natural state offer up some visually complex tangles.  The fallen branches, peelings of bark, and random twigs make an intricate sort of weaving.

It cooled off and the breeze picked up at the sunset we could not see.  Another sky-meets-the-sea, with another world peeking through.

From Pacific Beach.  Fog this morning and haze this evening, along with heat and humidity.  But lovely breezes and a sunny afternoon with a cousin and then a delightful evening with her family.  Summertime.

These pods look like contorted little cauliflowers.  But maybe that’s because I’m hungry.  Does food taste better and better the older you get?  Or am I just more aware that there are so many interesting things to eat out there?

I think it’s time to make Indian style cauliflower and potatoes.  I usually think of that as a winter dish, but it’s good for breakfast, any time.  Really.  The potatoes get nice and creamy and the whole thing with its toasted cumin seeds and yogurt topping with sweet-sauteed spicy onions is actually comfort food for me.  But then I’ve never been a sweets-for-breakfast fan.  Not against sweets, just not for breakfast.  Wonder if there will be doughnut pods on some plant or other?

This palm frond (?) has been bleaching out over the last several weeks, if not months.  It’s by the side of the road where we walk a few times per week.  Perhaps someone invented Venetian (!) blinds after seeing one of these.   Are there palm trees in Venice?

This is a blog post with excessive use of parentheses, which is a common fault of mine.  But there.  What a fault. Just the word ‘parentheses’ is fun, don’t you think?  And never mind Venetian blinds.  I’ll bet no one calls them that any more.  I hated our once-a-year bathtub cleaning of the Venetian blinds.  All awkward and drippy and somehow Mom always got the idea to do it on some random humid summer day.  Yep, take em down, fill up the tub, put the blinds in, scrub with a brush, remove and let drip and …I have no idea how we dried them.  The palm frond (?) is prettier.

I seem to go on binges.  It’s flowers or sand patterns or roots or, now, skies.

Today I was speaking Spanish to someone and couldn’t remember the word for ‘roof’ so I used ‘sky.’  They laughed and got it just fine.  I like the associations I make when I struggle to find a word.  It’s fun to be creative linguistically to make one’s self understood.  Words are pretty amazing.  Like skies.

With the ubiquitous palm tree.  Isn’t ‘ubiquitous’ a good word?

The sky was super-pink for several nights just after we moved here.   I don’t know what combination of clouds and atmospheric conditions affect the color; often it doesn’t seem to happen.  And,  often the camera turns the pink into yellow, but this time it was more faithful.  Nice finish to the day.

Nearly.  There’s green and gold in there.  The more you look, the more you see.  These are just grasses growing wild in our desert-meets-the-ocean climate.  It must have looked pretty scruffy around here before the advent of agriculture.  And pretty wonderful.

Finding this sort of image makes me feel very aware.  I don’t know that I would have noticed it before my art education.  The past twenty years have certainly helped me be more visually in tune.  It is often difficult for me to tear myself away from reading or writing or art-making.  But then I look for  —  and find — this sort of thing, and it becomes more rewarding.

Continuing on yesterday’s theme…this intricate tangle of roots was by the side of the road.  Nearly bleached out, its gnarly knottiness  is accentuated by its very lack of color.  The negative spaces create a deep dark background…wouldn’t it be fun to draw this?

They look like fence posts.  They appear like a collection of vine-like tubes, just stuck into the ground.    And then the bark (?) of the tree is so scaly and woven-looking.  The whole thing doesn’t seem like it goes together, the parts are so disparate.  They wave their fronds up so high, furry lollipops decorating the ocean view.  Apparently they are water hogs, and they certainly provide very little shade.  Some say they should disappear, replaced possibly by more environmentally sound specimens.  But they are such a tropical icon; they would be missed.  Perhaps people will marvel over them a few generations from now.

We started and ended our day with the ocean.  This was the better photo (around 9 am.)  We live in a vacation paradise.  We try to appreciate it every day.  This vista does truly restoreth my soul.

Not of the ocean, but near the ocean.  Sometimes cool things show up on our walks.  Different lighting helps me notice things I wouldn’t have otherwise.  What could seem like boring walks aren’t any more.

Nestled in all cozy-like.  Four-leaf clover? Flower?  Wonder if they are edible.  I remember the first rule of mushroom-hunting: only eat mushrooms whose identity you know for sure, and are sure is safe.   Now that’s a grammatically confusing sentence, there, and I think I’ll leave it at that.   Not that I’ve ever been mushroom-hunting.

It’s been damp.  It’s been humid.  It’s been warm.  It’s been sunny in the afternoons.  I would guess it’s been perfect right there for making mushrooms.  There were a few dozen of them sprinkled over a patch of lawn.  Aren’t they other-worldly?

There’s the conical one, and the bicycle seat, and the umbrellas, and, dare I say, the two with nipples.  Weird.  Don’t have to go to another planet for a dose of strange!

Well, it is and it isn’t.  This is a piece of art I finished today (nearly finished, that is) which is about the ocean.  Or it isn’t.  So many things are and aren’t.  Between here and there.  Or just about.  Or perhaps.  Or a little bit maybe.  And disappointingly not quite.  Or tangentially so.  Approaching.  On the way.  Close.  Approximate.  Circling.  As good as words can make possible.  Or marks on paper.  Or color.  Or stitches.  Or music, for that matter.  Edging nearer.  Halfway between here and infinity.  And then halfway again.  And again… Stairways to heaven?

How is this sunset different from all other sunsets?

Well, no, it’s not Passover, but each sunset is intrinsically unique, and this one seemed especially soft and gray and gentle.  Soft and gray and gentle is good today and lots of days.  Soft and gray and gentle seems rare.  I must look for more soft and gray and gentle in my life.

I love the white tips of these grasses.  They’ve just started appearing this week.  And look at the gorgeous, nearly monochromatic color scheme — the browns and tans and golds with the pink-rust and the soft white.  The ornamental grasses  around here are pleasing to the eye and to the touch.  I can’t help but run them through my fingers as I pass.

Newly arrived on the path around the lagoon, these must have been helped along by the rains of a few weeks ago..  Each one is only about a quarter of an inch in diameter.  I looked at many internet images but couldn’t find them. They’re darling dainties!