what's up?

woulda

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.

can't stand it

here’s a beaut from a month ago, out at pomona. managed to frame this up by itself, but the other cars are reflected in the paint. wish they’d take the auto club banners down.

recently, i took my mom out to dinner. on the previous visit to this restaurant, it had started raining lightly, then gradually harder, as we looked out the window. she worries that her hair will become a mess, and that someone she knows will see her. that’s never the case, and who cares? she vaguely looks like queen elizabeth, same hairstyle.

we dashed out to the van, her hair survived under her umbrella. all was right in the world.

this last visit, though…yes, it was supposed to rain, but supposedly a bit later in the evening. figured we’d have enough time to eat there and get back to her garage, no threat to her hair helmet.

as we ate, the sky got darker and darker. and then the skies just gushed a tumult of water, down on the cars, the street, the building, the sidewalk…of course the umbrella was in her van. she walks slowly, with a cane.

we waited a bit, hoping it would let up. our food done, and no sign of let up, i offered to run and bring her car from the handicap spot just right there, basically backing it up and lining up with the curb on at the front of the building. there is a small overhang, and i’d hoped that would be enough to get her in the vehicle without getting too soaked.

i don’t care if i get wet. i’d go full shawshank, if it was my car, and no one was waiting for me, really throw my hands back and get soaked.

turns out, it didn’t matter. between the building and the van, the parking lot levels down in the middle, i suppose to drain water out in case of rain.

this deluge had overwhelmed whatever drainage was there, and basically there’s a river to swim to get to the car. so i ran, head down to the van in the handicap spot. i thought i could possibly jump across most of the river, and maybe save my sandals from inevitable water damage, but either i can’t jump anymore, or it was wider than i thought. it was deep enough, my foot went totally beneath the water. and cold too. great.

i blipped the unlock button on her key fob, and opened the door.

only, there was a man in the driver’s seat. and he screamed like a woman. he grabbed the door handle and pulled it shut, the water flying in as i’d surprised him. stupidly, i’d opened the door of a van that had been parked right next to my mom’s.

momentarily shocked, it took another moment to go, duh, and yell sorry to the poor guy, then run around to the front of the correct van, right next door. enough time to get thoroughly soaked.

then had to wait to back up, due to a passing car. by the time i’d backed up to the curb, my mom had hobbled out from under the overhang, which really didn’t keep her dry. at least she didn’t have to wade across the river, but her precious hair was truly well and done…soaked and droopy.

she laughed when we looked at each other, and as i told her how i’d scared the crap out of that other driver, while i drove her home.

inconvenience

so there’s this virus going around…

torn between staying here in whittier or in oc with my mother. better half is giving me the stink eye, since i am out and about in the world, and he’s at home 24/7, and in “protect his mother” mode. will probably start packing my shit, and go stay at my mom’s for the duration. he disagrees with my laissez-faire attitude on the whole situation. he’s exhausted, and i don’t want to say anything else stupid here. dark clouds are moving in, and it will be raining again soon.

would be a good time to hide in my condo, but it’s currently being renovated and is in no condition for anything to live in it.

my office hasn’t shut down yet, and as of now, i wouldn’t be able to connect into the network and keep working from home.

was supposed to go on a cruise with my mom and brother, but that finally got cancelled—mom didn’t want to go anyway. they may reschedule to later in the year, since the cruise line doesn’t want to refund the money. see if they are still in business next month.

my current problem is that i took a week off for that cruise; was looking forward to time off from work, but by then, we will all probably be quarantined and not going anywhere anyway. i guess i’ll just cancel the time off and work if i can.

seeing more car shows being postponed or cancelled, so i’ve postponed making my annual reservations for chicano park day and others. so take my listing of car shows with a grain of salt, as i’m not out and about at shows, and not totally sure if some of them are cancelling or hoping for the best. i’m adding notes or deleting as i see info online. maybe i should just take the page down for now. i dunno.

here’s an old pic. pomona swap meet, from a couple of years ago. i guess no new shows, means i can dive into all the files from past shows i never have time to revisit. and i have a quite a bit to choose from over the last ten years.

two years ago, this was just primer. no idea if they’ve painted it or not. still a pretty cool car as is.

just makes me kick myself for not getting out of bed a couple of weeks ago and heading to pomona…

tut tut

looks like rain.

two hour drive home and out for a quick dinner so my better half can go shopping.

bro flew home today. hope he made his connection. hope he can figure out uber since no one in his fam wants to drive to the airport at midnight. if i could, i would have gone with, just to be sure he’s ok.

kid called wanting to do dinner , i.e., have me buy, but not down there tonight, so she’ll hit up gramma.

snagged a bottle of vino someone brought back to work from a meeting. i don’t drink, but my daughter-in-law does. she said she’ll take it.

pretty paint combo on this thirty-nine out at pomona a couple of months ago. so late in the morning, and a relatively empty parking lot, still surprises me.

skipped it

ya, ya, i was lazy this morning. didn’t rain as i had hoped, but was misty and sprinkly off and on today. still looks like more is coming tonight.

so i stayed huddled under the covers instead of cruising through the miles of cars at pomona.

here’s a shot from last month to compensate. penance. whatever.

i suspect there were just as few cars there this month as last, because of the cold and the possible rain. have only seen a couple of pics from other photographers so far today.

maybe next month…

month gone

been a month since dad passed. empty space in the house. he’s there, on the shelf, but it just not quite the same.

swear he ‘visited’ the other night while i was at the house. a warm, heavy weight on the bed, across my legs. i guess it could have been a dog, but i prefer to think it was him. said, “i love you dad,” and whatever/whoever it was went away. door was closed, btw, no one walked in, no dog in the house that day. i’ve seen a ghost before, so i’ll just go with it being my dad.

former coworker’s dad was in the hospital during the same time mine was; her dad passed last week. sorry to welcome her to the club.

we have since set my mom up with one of those systems for when you’ve “fallen and can’t get up” situations. came with various ways to communicate with the alert people: a one button necklace; a wrist watch looking thing; a pager thing; a big round button for the wall or desktop; and a ‘hub’ with the two-way speaker system.

my sister tested it briefly the day it arrived. she tested the pieces some more the other day.

i guess the point of the necklace and/or watch is not only to give you a button to push, should you be unable to reach the hub, they also detect the motion of a fall, in case you hit the floor and are unconscious.

so my sister was testing them by dropping them on the floor. that gets followed up by the alarm people calling the hub, expecting something happening, asking if there is an emergency, disappointed to be told they were only testing the things out.

well, later that evening, i was in whittier, my sister wherever it is she lives. we both separately get automated phone calls stating, “they’d received multiple medical alarms and the authorities have been dispatched…” wtf.

at the same time, my mom is getting the same automated message coming out of the hub, and receiving a call on the house phone, same message. they all give a number to call for more info, but it is already too late to stop the emergency dispatch.

mom hadn’t done anything. was just sitting and reading. so, realizing what was about to happen, she headed to the front door. slowly, mind you, she has trouble getting out of a chair.

she opened the front door just as four big muscley fireboys were running up the sidewalk. first guy waves off the others as she says she’s fine, false alarm. she’s so embarrassed, and explains. they say it happens, and they weren’t busy anyway.

she closes the door. she’s furious. hates the system. gets on the phone with my sister and yells that she wants it returned. apparently, my mom is cursing…which she doesn’t do…so you know she really is mad. she is approaching my level of cussing. i’m texting my sister at the same time, asking wtf, so i’m getting the play by play.

mom calls me a bit later to share the experience, but without the cussing. i would have enjoyed that bit. i wonder if the light on the various bits had flashed red before the message came in. she hadn’t noticed. sister-in-law, who ordered the system, was supposed to call the company to see what happened. i haven’t heard where the breakdown was, if it was the robot noticing the earlier testing calls, or that the human on duty had walked away from the phone bank and the terminator had taken over.

she’s calmed down now. my older brother has talked her into keeping the thing. one caveat though, she won’t wear the necklace or watch. they’re just strategically placed around the house. negates the point of them. better than nothing.

better half bets that i would have enjoyed the beefy firefighters as much as i did that one time they showed up at in-n-out for an older woman with chest pains. hot. except for that one guy. he’d be the one i’d get stuck with to give me resuscitation, undoubtedly.

sun came up quickly at pomona. at that point, you just have to start shooting whichever car you are near, to catch that sun hitting just so. i walked quickly among a handful of cars. liked this shot the best.

burreto

another photographer’s truck. old guy, he’s everywhere. don’t know him well, but he always says hello. knows everyone.

had to wait for his fanboys and him to go off somewhere else, so i could take a few shots. they’re ok; at least he parked off away from other cars.

hey rey. happy new year.

waiting/stressing

why is it repairmen and plumbers always give you a two-hour window for their visit, knowing they will always be there in the last five minutes of said window? i know they are padding their time from the previous appointment, or are they expecting you to be the one running late?

i’m punctual. i’m on time. hell of a day going at work, and i had to get home to facilitate their schedule. dude has another forty-five minutes, then i’m just going to wait some more.

i will have to go back to the office to make up time, then probably stay later working on some hard deadlines.

the only bright spot in the day is that i knew about the staying late part. i brought my cameras, so i could possibly, actually make it out to the orange county cruise night at sonic in anaheim. i may be on my way back to whittier during show hours. hoping there may be a few cars to shoot anyway.

———

here’s a merc i saw at pomona a few months’ ago. i liked the color. the fisheye distortion is a little much, but it just makes it look like it’s smiling.

tyson

shiny back ends from pomona a couple of months ago. pretty sure my better half was with me that morning, so this must be from march, actually. before his sister took off, and didn't come back to help with their mom. seems to be how we tell time around here...days blur together anymore.

queue the long, poorly told tale of yesterday evening—in case you want to opt out, and continue to some other post. i'm pretty tired.

took me an hour and a half, at least, to get home yesterday. i left work at three on a friday. just my daily hell.

ordered some dinner from one of the uptown restaurants. fuck cooking. didn't even want to walk over to pick it up...drove over to get it, and the order was just being brought out when i walked in the door, five minutes before it was expected to be ready. sometimes things just work out as they should.

then my daughter sends me a picture of my mom.

she had just gotten home from work. she walked into the kitchen, where my mom was apparently behind the doors of the pantry, trying to figure out dinner herself.

kid calls out to her, and my mom peeks out from around the door. she has a black eye.

daughter is like, "wtf." my mom said she'd gone for a nap around four, just fine. apparently, she woke up like that. slept on that side.

i previously mentioned that my mom had fallen backwards on the driveway. so that can't be a good sign, right?

thinking something bad was going to happen, kid sent me the picture. she tried talking her into going to the hospital to get checked out, since she'd refused the day she fell.

she wasn't having any of it, very, "it's nothing." really didn't want to go to the hospital.

i, of course sent the pics off to my brother and sister. other bro is off on vacay somewhere or other.

sister got on the phone to her before i could. brother responds with a comment about maori warriors. i say mike tyson.

i call my kid, who says gramma is on the phone with aunty. i can hear in the background, that my sister is having no luck convincing her into going. my dad, is meanwhile, upstairs sleeping and unaware.

finally, she's off the phone, so bye kid, calling gramma now. my turn goes better. point out that she may be bleeding into her head, and the pressure is building, she may have a concussion, she could lose her eye, she could have a stroke, and any other outcome i have seen on all the medical shows i've ever watched.

she was still saying no, that it will be too busy on a friday night, but i just said that i was coming down there, so she might as well get ready, make a list of her meds. i was going to be there to check her myself. she relented for whatever reason, and agreed to go then.

notified bro and sister that i'd gotten her to agree to go to the emergency room. back on the road south within about five minutes. sister calls about twenty minutes later saying she was going to meet up at the house and go with us.

blah blah blah. cutting to the chase, because i assume everyone knows the drill at a hospital. she'd fallen, so that called for x-rays, blood work, ct scan.

while she's off doing her thing, kid sends another picture. dad this time. he's got his own issues. he'd also fallen down earlier in the week, but hadn't told anyone until the day before. without going into specifics on him, he's got some bleeding going on somewhere, and it looks worse then ever. so we're off showing the pictures to nurses, asking their opinion on if we should make him come in. nurses do not want to give legal advice or opinions, but would say that is not normal.

we're on the phone with him, saying we'll come pick him up and bring him in, there isn't much waiting, and we could have both parents in the hospital together. we know how to rock a friday night. he refuses, saying he has doctor appointments lined up already for the week, and it can wait. he says no, it's a no. men. pfft.

meanwhile, mom is returned to us in the waiting room.

she'd landed on her ass, so that's bruised and sore. she walks slowly, and refuses to really be pushed around in a wheel chair. she'd also bumped her head on the cement. under her queen of england helmet hairstyle, she's got quite a pointy bump growing as well. i think she's going to be a unicorn if she doesn't get some ice on that.

only really waited about an hour to get an exam room. doctor comes in, with his dictation lackey behind him, typing up everything being said.

tests are not showing anything that would cause the bleeding. he keeps saying it looks like old blood, and that it will probably look worse before it looks better. says had i brought her in the first day, he'd have kept her overnight for observation because of the meds she takes, but now that it was several days later, he could see what's going on easier.

all in all, unless she feels worse, starts throwing up, feeling dizzy, vision problems, she should be ok. rest, and ice packs advised, and we're sent home within two and a half hours.

it's after midnight. kid has been up, keeping an eye on grampa, waiting for us to come home. he's had a late, late dinner, and is going to bed, not the hospital.

that late, i'm staying there, knowing my plans to go to one of six or seven car shows is blown. funny how easily it is to know what and where is more important to be, and how often lately i have had to skip anticipated car shows. next year, they will always come around again. parents, are on a limited clock now, so priorities.

this morning, i was awakened around eight by my kid's dog, who is barking out the window of the next room. kid has left for work already.

figured he needed to go outside, and/or eat his food. i slipped on the top stair, but luckily had my hands on the rails for a change. i totally would have fallen on my ass, and broke something otherwise. must be a ghost tripping people in the house, right?

i intended to wait until my dad got up, see how he was doing before making a decision on heading home. better half needed/wanted to get out of the house and to the market.

dad came down the stairs on his little mobile stairs chair thing around noon. made him a deal: mom would call his doctor's office, tell them what's going on, and if they said he needed to go to the emergency room, he would go. he agreed, just said he wasn't going to make the call.

his doc is out of town for the weekend, so she talked to the other guy. had to tell the whole story all over again. both times i hear her just throw in at the end of the story that he'd fallen, might that have anything to do with this bleeding?

they end up agreeing to see the doctor on monday, since he is otherwise not having any other symptoms or pain. like moving a mountain. at least he'd agreed to go if they'd said to.

i was free to go. day half over. stop for lunch. freeway traffic sucks. made it home at almost four o'clock.

better half is out driving around somewhere. i'd suggested he hit up the santa fe springs swap meet, see if anyone is playing a concert. he seemed more inclined into going to fry's or guitar center. will probably end up at in-n-out, since it's open late. or, for all i know, he's just in the back of his car sleeping.

i don't know how tomorrow will go. it's already almost eleven pm. i want to go to a car show in the morning. there are several. i'm tired. pretty sure i will just go to the closest—up the street at the high school fundraiser.

better half needs to do some overtime for work, so i will also probably have to get to the supermarkets. hate shopping. oh well. priorities.

back in black

made it out to pomona this morning. after the hike in from the parking lot, i probably only shot for a couple of hours. first time out in a few months, and i was getting exasperated by the people walking through my shots, and just the fact of the pomona swap meet—so many cars, on the move and parked together, ebb and flow of people. it gets overwhelming and boring at some point.

it was a good two hours to bang out some crap pictures, and remember what i used to do. kick start how to 'see' again, mostly anonymously. no one really bothered me.

better half had gone with me, to make sure i was ok, i think. he brought his camera bag with him, but mostly just shot the sunrise, before calling it a day. it was a really nice sunrise, i'll give him that.

got somewhat frustrated after the sun came up, when i wanted to shoot some details, but my second camera is having issues and giving me card errors. finally brought out the a6000, but the lens isn't what i wanted to use, so promptly sacked that one. guess i'll have to send it in for repair, since it's relatively new, and it doesn't seem to be a card issue.

this was the last car i shot, before calling my better half to see where he had wandered off to. he had been hungry earlier, so i assumed he'd gone to eat, and wander the aisles of parts. turns out, he hadn't eaten, and decided the pavement on the aisles was too rough for one of his cameras bouncing around in the bag, with it's delicate sensor.

so i said, i'd had enough, and we left to find breakfast/lunch on the way home.

my favorite end of this cadillac, with the great fins, and dual bullet lights. there was a woman sitting just off to the right end of the car, and her legs kept getting in the shot. so screw her, cropped it to the essential bit of the car. more interesting this way, anyhow.