studebaker
i wanted to go to pomona yesterday.
my morning on saturday had been good, until a little back and forth texting with my daughter turned my day dark. really pissed me off. started innocent enough, but as it seems i never say the right thing to her, her mood switches gears. i can almost hear the click of the attitude shift, and there’s no reeling it back.
so now i’m blocked from her phone and social media.*
i spent an hour aggressively cleaning things that i’d easily managed to ignore for some time. burnt out some of the fury with cleaning, and expletives under my breath that i needed to get out.
better half stayed downstairs, with headphones on, watching some movie on the tv screen.
then, i’d decided i’d like to try going to shoot some cars. test out my arm, and see how dizzy i might get walking around with my camera bag. i haven’t kept up with what shows were happening in a while, but i knew that pomona would be open on sunday. not a small show, and a long walk to the show area.
at least it wouldn’t be hot.
saturday night, i got my batteries charged up. set my alarm for some ridiculous time, like three-thirty a.m., so we’d have plenty of time to be at the gates when they opened at five. no way my better half was going to let me go there by myself.
i really haven’t used my cameras much since october, when i fell. i figured the cameras would be totally dead, and would need the time and date stamps updated, at the very least.
had one hinky battery that was not charging. the knock-off batteries don’t seem to last as long as the genuine sonys do. so chucked that one, and borrowed one from my better half.
put a battery in my newer camera, and it wouldn’t turn on. weird. maybe the camera got too cold in the closet? my older cameras would be a little dodgy when i’d be out shooting in colder weather.
if i put some pressure on the lens, and changed the setting to program mode, it would start up for a second, then, black screen. popped the battery out and tried another.
same. and i don’t use program mode, so would have been terribly upset if it was the only one that had worked.
better half took a look. the spring in the battery compartment had come loose, and so the camera wouldn’t stay on. couldn’t see how to fix it, but thought maybe it could slip back into the slot. didn’t seem to be broken off. didn’t have the tools, and i thought it might still be under warranty anyway.
great. wanted to cry—fuck that, i didn’t—and went upstairs to look for the receipt, and check online to see what i’d need to do to get it repaired. what a stupid and confusing website they have, i must say.
online, the estimate was a ridiculous three-figure amount, just for them to look at it. doesn’t mean final cost, and there were no live humans to chat with, because, weekend, and holiday weekend at that.
so we didn’t go.
thought about using my old camera, but better half thought maybe i should not push my luck for the time being.
so flipping through old pics, from old cameras, on old external drives, and found this studebaker i’d seen at pomona back in 2017.
no idea why it caught my eye, then, or today. it just looked like it was saying “cheese,” for the camera.
*she did send another message later in the evening, sort of apologizing, but still not wanting to talk to me for a while. better than not at all.