running late

so tired, but can’t sleep. got two hours of sleep last night, and took a four hour nap when i dragged myself home to my mom’s this afternoon. maybe i’m coming down with something.

didn’t turn my computer on all weekend until sunday afternoon—attempt to, that is.

after a couple of days at my mom’s, i spent the next couple in whittier. mother-in-law wants the tree up this year. last year we only got the lights on the bottom fourth, not even visible from the street, before everything went to hell and my dad died.

so i helped my better half string the zillion fruity pebbles colored lights on the thing until i couldn’t reach the branches. i have the scratches from the artificial needles and wires to prove it.

he says he’ll have the top done by the next time i get there. hopefully his mom will get in her wheelchair and supervise decorating with whatever this year’s theme is. better half would leave the tree up year round, as he used to, but his mom doesn’t do that. i think this year she said fuck it, leave it up until february to piss off the landlord.

anyway, the computer came up with some message and not wanting to load. better half finally got it going, but told me to back stuff up, as he might have to reload windows. ugh.

i was almost done working on a picture to post, when, for the first time this year, better half forgot to turn off his mom’s space heater, and started the microwave. boom. blows a fuse. down goes my computer, as i haven’t bothered replacing the battery backup that went bad.

instead of me also blowing a fuse, i just thought, “fuck,” and went and packed my bag for the days i’ll be at my mom’s, and tried to go to bed. it was close to eleven pm. didn’t even turn the computer back on…figured my file is toast anyway.

so no new pic tonight. here’s one from a show at dolphin park earlier in the year. liked the dappled light and fallen leaves around the car.

hoping i can sleep now. so exhausted.

one day at a time

1954 chevy

dad’s been gone over a week now. been sorta living in the house with my mom. better half stays with his mom.

still need to come to whittier once in a while, and today is one of those days. computer time, picture time. sister is hanging with my mom, and her daughter is visiting from japan…my dad had been looking forward to seeing her yearly visit. oh well.

thinking i’ve missed quite a few car shows this path month. better half had given me a new tripod and ball head before everything happened, and i only had it out this once at the kustom oldies/loyal alliance toy drive at dolphin park.

need to use it a few more times, before i declare i totally hate it, because it’s different than what i’m used to. the tripod is tight, but loose enough to lay flat on the ground. the ball head requires more fiddling than the pistol grip i have used for years. works but pisses me off. they don’t make the one i was using anymore, not too many of that model bouncing around on ebay.

better half says i’m not good with change. i disagree, i’ve been quite flexible for the last couple of decades. i just don’t see the need to change equipment, as long as it works.

here’s a nice chevy. red is such a hard color to shoot in the bright sun. i just couldn’t get out earlier, in the early early light.

thinking about pomona next week. it might rain, so i don’t know. bag the camera, carry an umbrella, get a different shot. it could work.

back home

finally made it home yesterday night. quite sure, i’ve completely used up my time off with pay for the year and then some. but an emergency is an emergency, and i am glad that i was there to help.

my brother is back home, physically all right. still a little on the loopy side, but hoping that will go away after he gets back on his regular schedule.

he has a lovely hospital bed smack in the middle of his office now, and will be visited daily by nurses or therapists or some such personnel.

hopefully i will not feel scared enough for him to have to fly back, but i would.

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one more from dolphin park last week. isn’t it lovely?

recovering

1939 chevy master deluxe

sitting here in florida, in an icu room, while my brother sleeps. surgery went ok, but he did have some somewhat scary complications, so i finally booked a flight to come see what was going on myself.

he’s going to be ok, but will be moving to a rehab facility for some period of time when they release him from the hospital. already booked a flight back in a few days, so he better keep improving.

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i did see an old chevy on the ride between the house and the hospital, but sister-in-law didn’t stop to let me take a pic. not really top priority for her, as she needed to be somewhere and has other things on her mind. i have her car for an hour or so, but i don’t think i’d find my way back to where the chevy was. oh well. 

it’s pretty cold here, for florida. nephew says because of a storm or hurricane coming in a few states north. pretty much feels like california now, at about seventy degrees in the daytime. almost nice, but i know the other three-hundred and sixty das of the year are mostly sweltering humidity, with some windy hurricane excitement thrown in. nah, i wouldn’t live here. i’ll stick with the occasional earthquake for one-hundred, alex.

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posted this car up on instagram before i headed to the airport the other day. i know i’ve seen it elsewhere, and probably posted it. it may or may not be the same one owned by someone who chatted up my better half once in anaheim, talking about hand sanding the pieces until flour would just slide right off it before taking it in for painting, or else there is another super purple master deluxe driving around. this one has some glitter in the paint, and i can’t remember about the other one.

contemplating

i went out for a few hours to the toy drive at dolphin park.

i expect a lot of people were at mooneyes xmas party. never been there, wouldn’t know where to park, didn’t feel like getting up that early, and also, too many people.

my younger brother, on the east coast, had gone into the hospital the night before. needed his gallbladder out, but no surgeons were available. so about the time i was wandering around the park, they’d finally got him in to have it removed.

so really, the show was just a distraction.

today, he seems to be in and out of icu, having some unidentified complications. i’ve offered to fly out there to give her a break, but his wife has sort of said not needed yet.

yet her updates seem to be getting more unsettling. i’m about ready to book a flight, but my mom says i should wait for test results. so i’ll just sit here and pretend that it isn’t bothering me, and putter around with my pictures, and watching my mother-in-law while my better half is out shopping.

so, here’s a chevy from yesterday. i heard there were about a hundred cars that had come through or were parked in the lot. admittedly, i didn’t expect to see so many, cuz, mooneyes.

i’d also never been to this park. not so very big. parked down the street, around the corner. wondered where they’d put the cars earlier in the year for a show there as well.

this chevy was one of the first few i encountered on the edge of the park, under the trees. i do love how trees can frame a car.