Close to Home

These days I don't even want to leave my neighborhood.

(Which is why you're seeing so many OTHER peoples' pics on my blog these days.)

I have a new garden.

Well, I actually have an empty lot to make a garden in.  (We bought the lot next door last year.)

I have succulents that I had been growing on my deck for years

that I plan to plant out.

But I need:  Better soil.  A wheel barrow.  And probably a gardener to help me!

Meanwhile I dream.  And I obsess.  I count the lupines "volunteering" in wet soil from our recent rains.  And I pull at the hundreds of weeds out that are crowding 'round them.

I plot and strategize, while nibbling on potato pie that hubby made us.

I'm trying to decide how much I like this marigold variety.  And I wonder if I should just plant gazanias.   

I don't want to leave home anymore.  I just want to stay here and talk to my flowers:  "GROW GUYS, GROW!"

How was your weekend?  I saw "Selma" last night.  It was a beautiful, graceful account of a very ugly time in American history.  I recommend it!  It is very relevant to the world we live in today because sadly, not enough has changed.  Some people are challenging some of the film's factuality.  Here's a response to that from someone (who I believe to be hero) who survived that time and was a participant in that history, Mr. John Lewis, a U.S. Congressman.

HAPPY MARTIN LUTHER KING DAY.

Someday, Spring. Meanwhile, David Hockney

Don't you wish you could do this???????

O.K. maybe some of you wouldn't.  Especially since it's very cold and snowy at the moment where you might be.  I would only want to do it as he does - with lots of assistants about, or in waiting in some nearby pub - to help with the setting up and taking down, to grab hold of the wet canvases in just the right way before a stiff wind can blow them right off across the countryside.  To tidy up the paints afterwards.

But what I meant to post about is spring.  It's on its way.  It might not seem like it now.  But soon it will arrive.  Even here in L.A., I dream about it.

Maybe you'll get a little soupçon of it, a bit of a thaw.......some little moment soon.

I'm so glad that David Hockney has moved back to L.A.  Even though I never run into him.  

But you never know, I just might.  One has to be hopeful......no?  Don't ask me what I would say to him.

Meanwhile.  HAVE A GOOD WEEKEND.  

What will you be doing???????

Time for a Fun, Fantastical Post

I Love the light-handed

graphic qualities

of these images.

Do you have a globe in your house?  I would love one of these.

I know it's not just me.

Lots of us are having a hankering these days for the elemental, and the handmade.

The making, that shows the hand of the maker.

I have a pile of wood in my backyard left over from my new fence.  I'm thinking of buying wood-cutting tools.  I love a new artistic adventure!  (Watch this space!)

Don't ask me how globes and woodcarving go together, excepting for the fact that all these pics come via:  Moon to Moon UK.  

Once Again, Someone Else Speaks for Me

More beautiful inspiring photos by Svea

at: http://swig-filz-felt-feutre.blogspot.com

Milles mercis!

I Am Afraid.....But I Won't Stop Talking

(Photo: Thibaut Camus via Associated Press)

"I'm not (don't be) afraid."

(via Stephane Bak)

"This is not a religion."

In my humble opinion, we must all stand together against intimidation whether by terrorists, or by the surveillance state.

Most of December, This Was on My Mind - Steve McCurry Expresses It Best

I just don't know what to think anymore.  The news from Paris this morning is awful.

And the feelings are overwhelming.

After the many heart-rending events of 2014

I've been at such a loss.

As a world, we seem bent on hate and destruction.

I posted recently on my personal Facebook page, that if we allow ourselves to be intimidated into

silence, by either terrorists or the other "Powers That Be"

we are surrendering our Human Rights, giving up the fight before it might even have begun.

I asked, while we have the means, shouldn't we speak up?  If not for ourselves, then for others?

Where is Mercy, where is Compassion, where is Reason?  And I address that to players on all sides of the violent global equation that we are locked into these days.

And what do I do with my life?  Console myself with my garden and my pretty pictures and hope it all passes?  I just have the feeling that things are going to get much worse before they get better.  Can things yet change again for the good in my lifetime?

Not so sure.  We are all Charlie.

Steve McCurry Retrospective
Villa Reale di Monza
Monza, Italy
October 30, 2014 – April 6, 2015

Finding the Sublime
CT Gallery
112, rue Saint-François
74120 Megève
France
December 16, 2014 – February 8, 2015

http://instagram.com/stevemccurryofficial

Zoo Day - L.A. Zoo

So are you the kind of person who likes zoos?

Or are you like Mr. Paradis and his family?

They tend to abhor zoos and circuses

and are inclined to find them cruel and unhappy places.

I have to admit that I found the L.A. Zoo like a lot of places in America where it seems

that more money has been spent on concrete, restaurants, souvenir shops

and maybe not so much on animals.

There has been a big controversy in L.A. about the mental state of the elephants at this zoo.  (And I didn't post pictures of the one elephant that we did see, because he/she did not look happy or relaxed.)

But I must say that the other animals (though there were surprisingly few of them on exhibit) we saw looked very healthy and sound.

Our family is lucky that we have the zoo virtually at our doorstep.

With habitats disappearing, I feel like we are privileged to be able to see these animals alive with our

own eyes and sharing space with them.  I always hope that their beauty will inspire enough zoo visitors

so that when they have they means, they will do what they can to preserve and improve the quality of lives and habitats of our fellow living beings.  So that we'll always have choices - whether to see them close at home.  Or in the wild.

How's your New Year been so far?  Already almost a week into it!