My.Third.Eye Photography

My Yesterday's Tree

Market Street Tree Trunk, San Francisco

52 Trees Say Cheese!

52 Trees Say Cheese! by Jane Underwood | Make Your Own Book

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Not Quite Ready to Leave Valencia Street

Man, I'm getting a ton of mileage out of last Sunday's (seven days ago) walk on Valencia Street! I found another tree there that I liked, about two minutes before our walk ended, and decided to class it up with a cinematic look:

 

Another thing I saw on Valencia Street was a dress on a mannequin in a boutique window. I wanted it. I own only one dress now, black and sleeveless with a stretch waistband and sort of a full skirt. Not figure flattering; also has a v-neck that is harder for me to wear now, given my post-surgery bodice. That's it. One dress in my closet.

This Valencia Street dress, also sleeveless, was a print of large, splashy medium and dark charcoal colored flowers (as if drawn on with chalk), against a tangerine background.  Tight fitting simple bodice, pencil skirt with pleats almost at the sides on both right and left, and a 3/4 inch black leather belt around the waist, with tiny silver studs all along it. Round scoop neck with black trim (leather?), but not low cut. I actually took a picture of it, so maybe I'll post that next time. But right now, Olivia awaits her walk. She has been patient, so patient, waiting for me to be ready to go.

A Tree Named Isadora

Shot this as we were winding down our Sunday walk on Valencia Street, when I was high on vanilla bean ice cream. (BTW, I just measured out the 3/4 cup of vodka and dropped one of my vanilla beans into it, after slitting the pod and cutting it into four pieces. Now for the one-month wait.)

I rarely do black and white photos, but this shot demanded it.

Now it has already become Wednesday, somehow. Something to do with seconds, minutes and hours speeding by with no thought whatsoever as to whether or not we would like them to go slower.

I've been re-reading The Time Traveler's Wife while taking my daily 30-minute far infrared saunas. I have forgotten the ending, happily. Still like the book. Haven't seen the movie, and from the trailers, don't think it would measure up to the book.

This pale ash gray, winter'ish summer weather sucks. Ogden street today is quiet. Funereal but peaceful. Only the occasional unmuffled muffler breaking the silence.

Robert DeNiro is 66 and has been married twice, both times to beautiful black women. I never knew that until yesterday after I watched him in a little movie from 1990 called Stanley and Iris, with Jane Fonda playing Iris. Googled him, went to Wikipedia, skipped down to his Personal Life. First wife was and I guess maybe still is a singer and actress but more of a singer. Second wife was a flight attendant. He has children with both.

Sweet movie. More like a made-for-TV movie, but sweet nevertheless. Jane works the conveyor belt line in a bakery. Is a widow with a bunch of kids. Somehow she and Robert meet, become friends, she discovers he can't read, teaches him to read, they fall in love, she stops visiting her dead husband's grave every day, he gets a good engineering job in Detroit because now he can finally read as well as make lots of cool mechanical inventions, he finds a house there with six bedrooms, proposes to her, she accepts, and we all know that they are going to move to Detroit and live happily ever after, kids and all. Wahoo!

Dawn Yellow Fence and Tilting Tree

"I love," he said, "your trees!" and she savored these words as she went to get the boiling water to pour through the bucket that needed cleaning. Cleanliness, godliness, health. And trees. They were all intertwined. Her trees. Her leaves. Her body. The bucket.

Françoizyk loved her trees. She and Françoizyk had never met, but apparently he loved her photographs of trees. He had seen them on the Internet site. This particular tree was a tilting tree, its deep burgundy-brown leaves set against an intriguing pattern of wooden walls, a fence, and an enchanting buttery yellow dawn light (deftly, if she did say so herself, manipulated so as to appear natural when, of course, it was not). 

Light switch, thermostat, heating vent. These had been the details, earlier that morning, going from right to left around the infusion room at the clinic (from her view in the corner lounge chair).

During every visit, she studied the uninterestingness of the white and gray room, trying hard to find redeeming qualities —  quirks, idiosyncratic nuances, surprising elements, perhaps even a touch of beauty — anything that would change her opinion of it. Going from left to right outside the windows on the opposite wall: The wooden backs of two beige buildings. On the back of beige building number one, farthest to the left, was a small window about the size of a breadbox, then two medium sized windows, lower down, absolutely average in size, to the right.

A brown wooden trellis stretched the length of both buildings. Green lush ivy on the left end of the trellis, then bare trellis, then more ivy. More windows further right, on the beige, same style building number two. This time, three more breadboxes, all in a row, higher up again. Her opinion did not change.

It was an unexpectedly gray day. Too gray for shadows, no enchanting buttery yellow light. Shadows would have livened things up. A man, heavy set (okay, fat) asked for a blanket because he had listened to the weather report and worn shorts, plaid, and a tee shirt. Joon scurried toward her, and she realized he was heading toward the extraordinarily narrow closet door that was slightly to her left but, still, in front of her. She had been wondering what they kept there, and now she knew. Pale green fuzzy blankets for fat men in shorts. She could and should have been brave enough to ask if there were any blankets, because she had been cold, too, even with long pants and a sweater.  She had imagined, had hoped, that the contents of this oddly situated little closet were unusual. She had been enjoying the mystery of what might be behind the door. If Joon hadn't opened it, this mystery, this opportunity for endless conjecture, might even have changed her opinion of the room.

"Almost done now!" Joon crooned as he tugged at the blanket through the barely cracked open door. Her feet, stretched out on the reclining lounger, were blocking the door. Yes, he was correct. The clear, almost glistening pink liquid was nearing the bottom of her IV bag, Drip, drip, drip. She willed him to hurry as she tried to look unconcerned, she hated cutting it so close, she worried about a swoosh of air entering her vein. How dangerous would that be? Could it kill her?

Joon scurried back across the room, gave the blanket to Mr. Fat in Shorts, and scurried back with only seconds to spare. "Good to the last drop, eh!" he said with a smile and an upward tilt to his voice that made her think he was giggling, although he was not.

She returned the smile and may even have replied, "Yes it is!" although she wasn't sure, in retrospect, if she had spoken aloud or only inside her head.

She gathered her two books, her cell phone, and her pack. She walked to the front desk and paid. She turned to the elevator door, pushed the button, stepped in, listened to the thick metal slab closing behind her, and thought Françoizyk loves my trees.  

 

 

1069 Tree

I snapped this whilst sitting on someone's porch step around the corner from Just For You cafe in Dogpatch, on Potrero Hill. Emerald, Jack's daughter, had taken Jack out to breakfast there, for Father's Day. I was invited but decided to let the two of them have some private time while I walked around Dogpatch looking for pictures. It was a beautiful sunny morning, and I loved ambling around warehouses and industrial buildings and vacant lots and old abandoned brick firehouse buildings. Lots of historic old brick buildings in Dogpatch.

Although I didn't go in for brunch, I did get one of Just For You's scrumptious, melt-in-your-mouth, naughty naughty naughty beignets that are made of nothing but airy light pastry and buttery regular sugar, then coated with powdered sugar. They fry them up for you on the spot. You eat them very warm. I ate mine as I walked. It was windy, so I was soon covered from neck to belly with powdered sugar, but there was so much of it on the beignet that I still ate a ton of it. I did not feel too full or sick afterward, sadly. I felt marvelous and wanted more.

Old Tree, New Tree #2 - Andover Street

I Love Trees Even (or Especially) When They are Not in a Forest