what's up?

left it alone

been having hot flashes. nothing new; i've had them for a few years, and thought they'd stopped finally. but here they are again. hot flashes on hot days, and i want to be like pedro and shave my head, because it was hot.

pretty sure i'd look a bit funny with no hair. i like being able to hide behind it, or tie it up when i want. really wishing i hadn't let the hairstylist cut so much off last time, but it's growing back out.

anyway, i want to go to shows this weekend. i will get to at least one. thing is, i have people wanting a piece of my time here, and at my house, and at my mom's. so, shuffling, juggling, prioritizing, however you want to term it.

i do not feel good, but i'm pushing through it, and ignoring it most of the time.

was leaving the show at chicano park, and came across a club and some few solo riders parked in the street by the market and apartments. i liked how this chevy was parked, probably deliberately, next to the big arrow, pointing out a nice car—shoot this one. ok, i did.

fourth of july

away from my computer, and not finding any pics on my ipad with flags waving, so i’ll just put up this old one.

early morning out in south gate, waiting to go onto the golf course at the azaelia festival. pretty sure this was a majestics car. very nice, with the sunrise orange sky behind it.

standard airbrushed, large-breasted women painted down the side. at least they are fairly well done—kudos to the artist—i’d be afraid i’d fuck up a paint job on a car. same goes for all the pinstripers out there. cuz omg, there is definitely really bad work being done, and what are you supposed to say to the owner? blow sunshine up in there and say, “yes that’s great, definitely looks like your kids and/or wife/side chick.” nah, i just don’t take pictures of them...too tempting to me...if you can’t say anything nice...

i think this was the year they wouldn’t let me in early, so i had to fend for myself in the parking lot until almost the time for spectators to be let in. that really sucked. if you see me sitting out there, let me ride in with you in your car; otherwise, i may just go find another show to shoot.

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holiday, and here i am, sitting in a pollo loco, josé feliciano singing soulfully, “light my fire,” while i enjoy the air conditioning. no one here, except the employees, and i guess a kid that belongs to one of them, quietly staring at a cell phone.

woke up this morning in my half emptied house. kid still has a lot of stuff to get out of here. he’s leaving the beds, a kitchen table, and a desk behind...won’t fit in his new apartment, or has otherwise upgraded with new. ok, i can use the beds, since mine were tossed during the six years he was in here, but i have a table and desk elsewhere, so need to decide what to do with them.

can always put them in the alley in whittier—lots easier and quicker than trying to sell stuff. i have no patience for it. or i can continue to have them in storage until my other kid moves out and give them to her.

very quiet and cold at my house, which my deeply introverted self is enjoying, almost like a vacation, from the house in whittier.

a large number of porsches, ferraris, and lambos roared by early morning. never saw so many pns cars on the road before. must be an old douche white guy car club, out being weekend warriors, taking advantage of a holiday mid-week. all going over the speed limit, engines roaring, but no cops around, of course. if i drove eighty in a forty zone, no doubt one would happen to be around and give me a ticket.

there is a lot of fixing to do here after this kid is out, but the other is impatient to get in, so we’ll see what i bother to get done. her big beast dog will hinder remodelling; probably will have to send him to stay at my mom’s while anything is done.

pretty sure i’ll rip up the flooring and replace the cabinets, especially since a pipe burst last month, and there seems to be some issues with the wall behind the dishwasher. you know the drill, replace one thing, and soon you’ll be replacing so many other things, so it all looks good. don’t know the first thing about doing these things, but my ex has offered to help or at least find people to do it.

i need to walk back to my place, but the sun is full up, so will be flitting from shady spot to shady spot the whole way. if i start feeling too ill, i’ll get an uber.

now that the eagles are singing, “peaceful, easy feeling,” i will be on my way. have a great holiday!

led zephagain

interesting zephyr from the bomb club show last week.

i don't see very many of them, or maybe i don't recognize most of them, but they are relatively similar to a chevy of the same year.

also liked how he parked in a little "picturesque" spot, next to the alien looking plants.

sunday. another day waiting to see if i have to be here to watch my mother in law. better half's coworkers have not let on to what's going on with the scheduled photoshoot he was supposed to be doing.

my kid is currently moving out of my house, so, yay! wonder how long i can wait until the other one wants in. i'd like to redo the kitchen and maybe the flooring, but since they both have dogs, the flooring can wait.

i do look forward to the hottest days of the summer, and being able to escape to air conditioning. one of my main complaints about this here house in whittier—no air conditioning.

one of these days

one of these days, i'll get to the weekly cruise out at the in-n-out in covina. i did make it out to this show that happened on a weekend back in march. good weather, lovely sky, beautiful cars. in some ways, way better than summer and it's heat.

veteranos are good guys. as long as they were parked altogether here, and not too many people walking through the shot, did a quick pano of the group.

i have such a headache today, and i'm tired. shocker, huh? better half still waiting for a call to head in to the office for a photo shoot. might not happen if it gets too late.

wore a dress and heels to work yesterday. just bought the outfit the night before. two gift cards burning a hole in my purse for a year, plus me trying to avoid hanging out with a doberman all evening, so i ended up doing my least favorite thing...shopping.

best part, was that since i hardly ever wear more than jeans and a casual shirt to work, the reactions are priceless. especially, since they've said we can all wear shorts on fridays for summer, and here i am dressed up.

i believe that one of my coworkers drew the short straw, and when i walked back to my desk, asked why the dress? all i could say was that i felt like dressing like a girl for a change. that was really too obvious an answer, but i was not on my toes to come back with a more interesting response. at least i still didn't bother with makeup.

hardly ever wear heels, so i tottered around stomping like a horse. maybe it was just because they were new. more likely, i am just out of practice, and walking like a kid in mom's shoes.

someone said there were bagels on the next floor down, so a group of us took the stairs. glad i didn't fall on my ass or twist an ankle.

on the inside

spend the day at work, screaming on the inside. fuck, fuck, fuckity fucksticks. i’m tired, but it’s probably just stress.

i usually have a constant stream of work, and/or multiple overlapping deadlines, and i usually thrive with that. after all, idle hands, find trouble.

also years of being busy in front of a computer, have gotten me curvier than i want to be, so i really need to do something about that...doesn’t help that my better half gave me a bag of m&ms, though it’s the thought behind the gift that matters. thanks, d.

i’ve had a couple of slow days, and i’m fighting to stay awake, and just want to go home. i find something to keep myself busy, but i can feel my eyes wanting to close.

it’s almost a holiday weekend, and summer, so a lot of people are probably on vacation, hence no work or responses to my emails.

didn’t want to fight traffic home to whittier, so staying close to work, and heading to bed early.

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i see someone has been searching my posts for a particular name. he is in my thoughts and prayers, but i don’t think it’s my place to share his challenges here. you know who you are. take care, hope to see you soon.

—————

this shot was from a cruise at in-n-out in covina. i seem to be shooting a lot of steering wheels and dashboards lately. probably subconsciously intending to make another book to go with the one i gave away at xmas a few years ago, of hood ornaments.did you get one? probably not. they are still for salesomewhere...probably on amazon...they own the world, don’t they?

out there

quick post. stayed out all evening trying to find new outfits. i hate shopping, and clothes are cheap and poor quality. i'm such a failure at girling, i guess. whatever.

mostly was trying to avoid having to walk/watch my kid's dog until she got home from work. got to my mom's only to find she/it wasn't there--staying with a friend for a few days. oh well.

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saw this forty-one at santa anita the other day. for some reason it was sitting off to the side all by it's lonesome, instead of in line with all the other cars waiting to go into the tunnel.

didn't really like the color version, so tweaked it to black and white. sort of looks better this way, somehow more dramatic. like, "here i am."

i'll bet

great show yesterday at santa anita. bomb club has a lot of friends, i guess.

second time there for me, but i could only stay a few hours, as i had to be elsewhere, and my better half had things he needed to get out and do.

yet, i almost hit the snooze button, which would have led to me blowing off yet another show. so, tiredly, i talked myself into getting out of bed ten minutes later, still before five a.m. i'd spent the week trying to figure out how i could do this show, and get from there to the other places i needed to be, and then back in time at home for wherever it was my better half had to go, which was, initially, to his office.

weather had shown it was going to be in the nineties this weekend, and i really dreaded being out in it. instead, it was overcast and cool. the bomb club was just being allowed into the tunnel to the infield when i got there. couple of the other photographers were already busy shooting the lineup, well before i arrived.

i chose to follow the cars inside, rather than be kept out like last year. the security guard chose to tell me the tripod was ok on the infield, but i couldn't take it up into the stands on the other side. told him not to worry on that, as i wasn't going up there.

spent my time staying out of the way, shooting cars already parked, before people and cars got in the way, or the owners moved them or started polishing them. shot them again, when i found them in another location, sometimes minutes later.

liked this chevy parked here, near the track and the pop-up betting info tent. i like the curves of the back end [that's what she said].

took my time walking around the bomb club's cars. then headed over to the other areas, as they started letting in groups of cars to stake out their clubs' spots on the grass.

even stopped to play with the big lens i borrowed from my better half. i used to use it when my kid played college baseball. it'd been a while. thought i'd try it on the horses. i'd asked what settings to use on it before i headed out, as i'd forgotten what i had done years ago. wasn't that impressed, and obviously i'd set something wrong...more noise on the shots than i like, and too dark. switched it from the full-frame camera to my crop sensor, and still didn't like it. maybe next year, if i am not in a rush, i'd fiddle with it more.

upon deciding to leave the infield, and passing through the tunnel back to the parking lot, i found an equal number of cars still waiting to get inside. someone said they were being held up by the movement of the horses. i didn't understand why, since the ponies had been on the track warming up and exercising all morning.

it seemed, as soon as i stepped out of the tunnel, the sun also decided it was a good time to come out from behind the clouds. the medicine the doctor has me taking, makes me sensitive to sunlight, so that was going to end my fun soon anyway—could already feel my skin tingling.

still, i picked out a few cars to shoot, stopped to chat with a few people i hadn't seen in a while, such that, one of them had a baby that was already a year and a half old...last i saw him, it had just been born. time flies.

was nine-thirty when i finally left...an hour and a half later than i had scheduled myself. had called my better half at eight, and he said all was good, take my time, he wasn't in a hurry. so i had.

i like the venue; hope they have it there again next year. will cross my fingers for another gloomy morning, and get there before sunrise next time.

dreaming

digging down to one of the older pictures that have been sitting in draft mode.

i like this picture quite a bit. probably would like it more if i just rubbed out those two modern cars on the right.

out by legg lake, so it must have been one of the los boulevardos' barbeque picnics; i'm just too lazy to look up the file right now.

well, my software is doing updates, so i can't work on a picture now. tired anyway. busy day, not enough good sleep at night.

we have baby monitors in all the rooms of the house, so we can hear if my better half's mother calls. her inner timer is screwed up, so she is often up all night watching tv, and randomly asking for coffee or meals at two, three, or four a.m., then sleeping half the day.

lately, he's had many all nighters, then full days of work, so he is mostly just stumbling through the day. he calls this place his sleep deprivation lab.

i have a hard time going back to sleep once i'm awake, so my better half pretty much sleeps in the front room, so as not to disturb me. i'm supposed to leave the volume up at night, so i can be the back up, should he not hear her.

once in a while, we both are just unconscious to the world, and she has to resort to the alarm on the monitor, and even that doesn't work sometimes. when you gotta go, you gotta go. fortunately, one of us has heard it eventually, before she has tried anything stupid, like trying to stand up by herself, and into her wheelchair.

apparently, i only hear her half of the times she calls at night. wasn't a problem when i was young, with little babies, but i guess i've lost that sense of hearing, and remain solidly asleep, especially since i don't get there until after ten most nights. maybe i have insomnia.

long ago, not long after i married my better half, said he tried to wake me up one night. he claims i told him, "shhh." he tried again, but this time i said, "kathy's sleeping." pretty sure there was a variation he likes to tell people, where he said i told him "kathy isn't here right now," but not in the current iteration.

he thought i was fucking with him until i went on snoring or whatever. strange that i left a keeper at the gate to warn him off.

well, he dreams, vividly. he once told me he went to germany...

father's day

old plymouth from the uptown show. i like that even though i walked up there relatively late, around six-thirty, the street was still pretty empty. i've shot this car several times over the years, but this is probably my favorite picture of it so far.

a relation of the owner inquired about some editing on it, and inserting parents into the shot...sure i can do that, for a price...but they never got back to me, so i'll leave it be.

hey dad, probably won't make down to your house today. restaurants are busy anyway. we can go out tomorrow, mkay?

another perfectly, cold june gloom day. i really should go out to one of the parks around here, for any one of the many car club barbeques happening, but judging by the last holiday park show i went to, finding parking and dealing with the crowds, make it so much less fun. unless you're there first thing at dawn. which it isn't now...well into the afternoon, so there you go. i'll stay put. better half has marketing and probably heading to the office to work stuff, so here i am again.

i will just sit here, play with pictures, and watch as numerous people park illegally in the street, and walk up to the neighbor's door. usually towards evening. they don't stay long, so nothing nefarious is going on.

money is exchanged and they return with bags/boxes of something or other. we suspect it is some type of unregulated food prep for restaurants, cuz they're always cooking in the kitchen with the windows open. this being father's day, i expect quite a number of pit stops to happen.

we don't really talk to them, as they've been assholes since they moved in over a year ago. really surprised the old curmudgeonly neighbor hasn't call the health inspector on them yet.

used to be a drug dealer living in the house next door, and long after they were busted, strange people continued coming around, but i don't think this is the same thing.

we do like to make up stories about what might be in the plain brown bags though. i'll go with homemade playdough today, in hot pink and neon green. buyers will go home and open the bag, stick their faces in the top and take a big whiff, sending them back to their childhoods.

just close your eyes and open a can of playdough...sniff it...it totally works, assuming you played with the stuff as a kid.

but that homemade shit, probably not the same...might not take you back that far...and who wants to be a teenager again? ick, no.

whatever; i can't think just now

when wondering around city-sponsored shows, be sure to look down side streets...usually you find cars that did not register, or do not want to pay the fee to park in the main areas.

in this case, i spied a few cars down the space between the movie theatre and the building next to it. walking to the back of the theatre, in the overflow parking lot, were several cars parked near the barbershop. this year, the barbershop did not drag their barber chairs out to the show as a vendor to do some barbering, but people went to the back to their shop. seemed busy in there too.

this cadillac was parked next to it, in the alley.

later in the afternoon, there seemed to be an after-party going on back there, as i walked home from an afternoon movie.

i suppose i should write something. i didn't go to any shows today, a perfectly cold, overcast photo-loving weather day. better half joked that i would write about why i didn't go out, and what excuse i would use.

well, since no one reads this but him, and some lurkers, the only excuse i will say, is i took some me time. the blankets were too comfortable, i hadn't slept well all week, and the show would go on without me. besides, i spent most of the day hanging around the house with him, so he can't complain too much.

i did go uptown to mail a letter, and get a late lunch. an old chevy from the kustom oldies car club drove past me, on the way to the post office. it stopped momentarily on the corner by central park, and drove down the street before i could get my phone out for a picture.

then, by the time i got to the corner, i spied it coming back down the street towards me. so i got my phone out, ready, and snapped a quick shot as he sat at the stop sign. got a wave from the owner too. i think their club had one of the shows i could have gone to today.

also saw an edsel uptown too. you can see both on my instagram.

a few thoughts from a week of long drives home:

i'd rather spend time in the evening working on a picture, then go to sleep, rather than trying to think of something to write about here. does that make me a terrible blogger, or just over-tired? i have plenty of pictures ready for a write-up, but not a lot of time to spend thinking of what to write, hence i spend my afternoon drive-time writing fun stuff in my head, with the best of intentions, only to not be able to remember most of it when i get home.
there's a person in my office building with a tuft of hair on their mostly balding forehead, and all i can think of is that he represents the lollypop guild...and to welcome me to munchkin land. terrible of me, i know, but it makes me giggle every time i see them. there used to be a girl that wore a big military overcoat looking dress, and she was one of the witch's guards...i might be working in oz without knowing it.
i need to improve my attitude at work, kind of an i don't give a fuck mood. i've been in this state of mind before. one of my better half's favorite memories is of sitting in on a meeting with my former manager and team at a former job, telling that manager to his face, in front of all my coworkers, that his idea was stupid. mostly because i didn't want to participate in that particular project. better half called it a career enhancing move on my part. manager did turn a lovely shade of red, and the vein did bulge on the side of his neck. coworkers looked at the floor, the ceiling, elsewhere. ultimately, nothing happened, but i didn't have to participate on that project, which was the point anyway. i think the mood is from all the other stuff going on in my life; it will pass, and hopefully, i'll still be employed this time.
my kid is going to move out of my condo soon. i fantasize about gutting it, and putting new flooring, cabinets, bathrooms fixtures in. then remember my other kid is moving in, with her big beast of a dog, and half of that fantasy gets put on hold. still might replace the fixtures or the kitchen. figure by the time she moves out, i'll be too old to live there anyway, too old to climb the stairs...the next person can replace the flooring.
randomly, the lowercase m will not type while logged in to this website, so i'm having to type it in a different program and paste it in here. wth, squarespace?
why does the uptown rite-aid blast barry manilow tunes outside 24/7?
did i mention my dad has been in the emergency room and/or hospital at least twice more since the last time i mentioned it? he seems somehow less than he was each time after. tomorrow is father's day. i hope he doesn't spend it there. best to go give him a hug while i still can...
oh, and i got three pictures accepted into the oc fair this year. already have the framed prints ready to go. my problem is that i have to drop them off next saturday, and i really want to go to the bomb club show at santa anita. and i think my better half has to go in to his office to hob nob with some executives, so i have to be here while he's gone. yet to see how the schedule will go...