what's up?

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.

still around

went out to the just memories/kustom classics toy drive last night in bellflower. i’m a bit rusty, as i haven’t been out as much.

got there about four-thirty, before the official start time. really just some of the club cars there, and mostly the hopper types. shrugged and just went with it, since i was there.

figured i try to remember how to do night shots like i used to when i’d go to the broiler. have you noticed how fast the sun takes a dive this time of year? just blink and it’s dark early, too.

no one really bothered me, while i skuttled around trying to stay out of the way, as more cars did show up eventually. the lot got pretty full by the time i left three hours later.

i did run into one friendly face, who did chat for a bit. apparently he had heard i’d been in a bad accident, hit by a car or something. first i’d heard of it. wasn’t me, obviously, as i was there chatting with him, but fun story anyway. i was expecting to start hearing stuff, since i don’t go out much—family obligations get priority—can only juggle so much.

this was the last shot of the night. i’d done one more look around, and saw this one sitting in front of carl’s. i’d shot it from the other side, as there were a couple of guys sitting where i’d set my tripod on the other side, but then the owner, i presume, said he liked it better from the other side. i saw that it had the spare tire on it, so i agreed. told him there were dudes there and didn’t want to bother them, whereupon, he got them to move.

it turned out ok, in spite of people that did walk through my long exposures.

to the wordsmith that felt the need to send me the email “ur dumb” with the three word message: “this website sucks,”… i applaud your economy of words; precise and to the point, yet lacking in any real constructive criticism. be still my heart. what shall i do?

no one is keeping you here. perhaps you should stick to the instagram page—no reading necessary.

and then i got on with my life…

no what

psst. better half just was sent on an expedition to fetch large wheels of dough slathered in tomato blood and the various body parts of slaughtered beasts. yummy right?

that’s for him. i’m just keeping it simple and getting a small one with processed cow juice melted on it.

when i get home now, i have about an hour before it gets full dark. he delayed me going uptown by having me watch something on youtube, and i sort of got stuck watching it for a while.

now it’s dark and he didn’t want me to walk uptown alone, and he can’t go, so he offered to go out.

pretty sure he’s a little stir crazy. it’s good for him to get out, even for a little bit. even tho he is really very tired…his mom had a bad night, so he was up a lot dealing with that. even overslept a bit when he should have started his work day. oops.

at least it hasn’t started raining yet. and the weather man is always right about when that starts around here…not.

seen this blue chevy around before. i know it’s posted here somewhere from last summer. here it was at the veterano’s show, sitting in the blue car parking area, i guess. purty, ain’t it?

thinking that blue is a little bit too blue, but i don’t feel like toning it down. maybe it’s my eyes, or my monitor.

choices

my brother is heading home tuesday. one of my other brother’s kids is here with his girlfriend. better half needs to go to the market. i want to go to one of several toy drives. day is half over already.

finding myself sitting indecisively uptown, having a shrimp basket.

better half’s adventure is dependent on how his mom is doing, which is currently a maybe he’ll go any time soon.

my nephew has probably already left; my bro i could see again tomorrow, but i was also going to haul down a big chunk of leftover ham from thanksgiving. if i do go there, i might as well spend the night, since it’s only a few exits from work. ugh, already don’t want to go...sunday traditional whining.

car shows...mid-day light sucks. why isn’t overcast like yesterday? and most are done by four or five, so if i’m going, i should get going.

and then, i’ve also barely made a dent sorting vacay pics...still solidly in france. this project will take forever. suppose it would be better to take a film camera next time, and take fewer pics. easy, right? should i post more?

never enough time. never.

————

old car from the veterano’s show. owner didn’t say much, just sort of watched. no worries, i don’t want to hurt your car as much as i don’t want to hurt my camera. i do need a new tripod. and i should start thinking about using the chuck e cheese account at work to get another camera body. oh, there’s another thing to do...actually mail in the two broken cameras for repair.

granny watch

i’m seeing more shows happening at this location in covina. not terrific, especially when a lot of cars show up, but there is space if they need it, due to the closed supermarket next door. close enough that i can get back home quickly if needed, and i haven’t noticed certain a-holes attending this one. apparently, i do hold certain grudges when earned, and it has ruined my enjoyment of car shows more than i think.

should have kicked the guy in the nuts at the time, but i didn’t, and bitching about it here doesn’t fix it. he’s an ass, probably was a bit drunk, and probably doesn’t even remember. i do. asshole.

anyway, the veteranos show was quite full of cars, so i was in a happy place. better half kept saying things were fine, so i didn’t need to head home as early as i thought. i shot maybe ninety percent of the cars that were there before i left. i did skip a few. people in the way, hood up, not my type, the usual reasons.

a lot of them are just ok shots. need to get out more, to keep my eyes open to seeing a good shot.

i liked this one. usually shoot fifty-eights from the back end, since that’s the interesting part for me. i did shoot that, but i just like the crop and reflection on this angle.

better half just left to search for a couple of new internal hard drives for me to fill up. hoping to get a price match at frys, but they mostly never have what he’s looking for in stock. otherwise, he’s getting time out of the house to do whatever he wants, a break from watching his mom. i could recommend a few toy drives he could visit…

she seems to need a break from him as well. wish they were a board or card game playing people…i’d hit her up, give her something else to do besides sleeping or watching tv.

maybe tomorrow we will begin hauling xmas crap in the house. my annual crabby, gloomy mood is starting to descend already.

post thanksgiving

here’s a majestics’ car from this past summer. a latin gents show out in cypress. don’t see too many yellow impalas. maybe i just don’t notice them.

thinking about this latin gents show, makes me wonder how ernie is doing…he had some news that day. been too busy to get out to any of their shows since then, so haven’t heard from him since.

i did not go into a turkey coma yesterday. my sister bought a full dinner from gelson’s or some such whoop-di-doo market. mom has had enough to deal with lately, so giving her a break from cooking the traditional dinner. pretty sure her time for cooking the big family meal is done, and future holidays will either be bought or i will have to volunteer to do it.

i sort of half assed said i’d do it, but was happy my sister just picked one up.

i’ve cooked a turkey before, but i’m not all about the bird, so i guess it turned out ok. i want to say that was decades ago, for my ex and his parents. gosh, my daughter was probably only a year old…time flies. i get no joy from cooking, and avoid it when i can. anyway, they always dumped hot sauce on anything i cooked, so, i just didn’t bother the next holiday. they are happier with tamales anyway.

this year, as usual, better half stayed home with his mom; he sent me to my parents house…”never know how many more holidays you’ll have with them.” my bro showed up; wife and daughter stayed up in los angeles with their friends. dad initially wasn’t feeling well and wasn’t going to join us, but he did come down the stairs just as we were sitting down to eat.

the company was good, but the food was unremarkable. only a few bites of turkey, and the pathetic mashed potatoes. i’d brought a cherry pie, but it sort of tasted like they’d given me a sugar free version, so disappointed.

bro is in town without a return ticket home. they’re looking for a house, and he is spending time with mom and dad. wife and kid going home sunday. they wanted to go to disneyland today, but pretty sure they bailed on that black friday hell.

i drove home this morning, expecting to see store parking lots full, but noticed them to be only part full. did people go shopping at midnight? was happy to find no one at in-n-out, and no one in the drive thru, so went there and grabbed some burgers for my better half and myself.

have otherwise, not done anything or left the house today. hoping to sift through the nine-thousand plus photos from my trip this weekend.

i’m blathering, so i’ll just stop.

jaded

veteran’s show last spring over at rose hills. the “mayor’s” car, again. he always wonders why i take pictures of his car every time i see it. if i didn’t shoot cars that i’ve seen before, repeatedly, there would be far fewer cars for me to shoot around here. same guys go to the same shows, driving the same cars. but there’s always some variable that has changed, most obviously, the light and/or the location.

i’d never been to a car show in a cemetery before, so come on, that’s way different. no idea what those buildings/sculptures in the background are, but it was kind of cool, no?

my dad got out of the hospital yesterday. after three months of bland, diabetic diet food, he had my mom take him out for everything he had been craving: pho soup of some sort, ice cream shake, and diet pepsi, for starters.

this morning he was whining that the food in the fridge tasted funny and/or was out of date. reminded him that mom had spent most of the last few months driving back and forth to sit with him every day, so she really hadn’t done much shopping. pointed out the egg nog he was complaining about, was in fact, still good until the end of the month. it just tastes nasty, because…egg nog. ick.

this evening, i asked my mother-in-law if she would like me to get her something uptown. usually mentioning where i was going, leads her to remember something she used to order. tonight, instead of just california grill spaghetti, she wanted spaghetti with marinara, so i was going to have to drive out to a different restaurant.

went out to lascari’s. figured i’d just get lasagna. got mine for there; hers to go. most restaurants will hold off on the to go order, but no, the waiter brought it out with my dish.

the food there was always pretty good. is pretty good. it’s just that, after going to italy, it’s not the same. told my better half that the lasagna at the sit-down restaurant here, is on par with a fast food lasagna over there. just not very flavorful. my homemade stuff is better.

mother-in-law is happy as a clam. her spaghetti is exactly how she remembered and was craving. meanwhile, as my co-worker said the other day, i’ll continue to dream of gelatto…

aaa again

another strange week starting. i’ll blame it on the santa ana winds...

quick post, since i’m pretty tired from this day’s issues.

second night of few hours of sleep, got up and off to start work after five am, as i had a doctor’s appointment later in the morning. better half also warning he may still need to take his mom in to doctor later as well.

worked a couple of hours, then off to my appointment. nothing special, just annual physical. but that also requires fasting for the blood tests, so i’m also pretty hungry, but not quite hangry. no surprises, just getting older and fatter, of which only the latter i can do anything about.

needed to pee in the given cup, and i really needed to pee by that point. of course, as they send me around the corner to the designated collection point, some random patient is locking the door to the designated bathroom, and seems to be settling in for some thoughtful time for reflection. they should have used the public restroom down the hall.

instead, i wait impatiently just outside the door, so i could glare at them when they eventually made their exit. took a while, and was dreading what i might be walking into. ended up being an ancient asian lady with a cane. she just smiled as she slowly moved towards the lab waiting area. so i had to stifle my hangry outburst, cuz she was just old and needed to go.

anyway, done did that, and also felt like a keg getting tapped for vials of blood. not a fainter, love horror movies, but don’t want to see the needle stuck into my own arm. “that hurts, you bitch.” thanks for the flourescent pink bandage; i would have preferred the blue.

quick breakfast/lunch, and back to the office. wasn’t really busy, and no one noticed anyway.

mom calls around four. she’d just arrived home. something wasn’t right with her car. felt wrong at freeway offramp. neighbor checked it out...discovered a bolt in her tire. she wasn’t sure what to do, as dad always takes care of these things.

told her to call triple a, that’s what you pay them to help you with, when you’re a damsel in distress.

cancel the drive to meet up with my kid for a chat, and head over to the house. she’d tried calling for help, but the number didn’t ring through or something.

i call from the house phone, forgetting to dial a one first, and get someone named rachel, not sure if it was a business or personal number. she must get these calls all day and night. hang up dial again. truck will be there in ten minutes.

driver gets there, says it can probably be patched, and pulls the spare from the back of the car. like new, never used, completely flat. he fills it with air, and is ready to change tires, only to realize there’s a wheel lock to remove. tear the car apart looking for the key thingy. stupid lugnut. look in the garage., nope.

dad couldn’t find it a few months ago, and had just had them cut and replaced. driver’s boss is telling him to hurry up, this is taking too long. tried calling dad at hospital on his cell phone, no answer. tried the front desk to nursing station to room phone, no answer. nurses station said he was just sitting on side of his bed, but didn’t bother to go hand him the phone. no doubt he didn’t have his hearing aid in, and heard nothing at all.

even tried calling my ex, as he probably helped him at the time and might have an educated guess on the location. no, and sorry to bother you.

i’m sure we’ll find out tomorrow, the key is just sitting in a drawer somewhere, useless in case of emergency.

mom is stressing out, her heart is doing flip flops or some other syncopated rhythm. so i just tell her to stay home and i hop in the truck and go with the driver to a tire store that stays open later than the two i have already called.

long story short, they were just able to patch it, as it was sort of close to the edge, but treads are low on both front tires, so we’ll have to go back soon and fix that. thanks dad, yet another reason to get the car serviced and rotate the tires once in a while. but he’s old, and can’t do it himself anymore, and it costs money, he’d say. ya, but mom drives it, and it needs to be safe.

and better half said his throat is kinda scratchy and he’s starting to cough...

———-

getting late, and not hungry, just angry now. going to contemplate this fleetmaster from the veterano’s show. pretty, isn’t it? wishing the green machine behind it, while equally lovely, wasn’t there messing up the shot, with the sparsely leaved trees nicely framing it up. always something i can pick apart in my pictures if i really want to.

really felt good to get out again. been too long, and they definitely did not have these kind of cars in italy.

also stopped at this one

since it was sort of on the way home from the veteranos’ show yesterday, and also on the way to in-n-out, i thought i’d just drive by the pico rivera veterans day show. had i not driven up the street, and found a nice, big space to parallel park in, i would have just kept going toward my lunch. but there it was, right on queue. guess it was meant to be.

i did stop, pretty much for about half an hour. saw a lot of my favs, and also a lot of cars i could care less about. i was starting to feel a bit wavy, so just did a quick run around half of the cars. didn’t go anywhere near the stage. didn’t even stop and chat with the usual people i would have spent more than a few minutes shooting the breeze with.

in spite of the live performance going on there, plenty of people were still milling around the cars, and i wasn’t high on patience to out-wait them. skipped cars i would have normally happily shot.

anyway, there were several bomb club cars there, and those guys are pretty nice, and so are their cars, so i shot a few.

trying to think, but i’m tired; probably shot this one before. just figured i should put up something from this show.

sure there were a few other ‘obvious’ cars that may be ‘better’ cars, but they are too polished, probably got an award from that crowd. maybe another time.

freedom of speech

made it out to the veteranos car club show in covina today. thank you to @rosiecheeks8 for the invites/reminder about the show. was nice to see you and your husband again.

thanks for the water @porfs41.

saw the owner of this car again as well. he’s looking forward to seeing it on here again, so here it is, since you were so enthusiastic about it.

actually, he sort of stopped me from taking the shot before this—he really wanted his hat to be in the picture. asked if it was ok; it’s your car, man. if that’s what you want on your car, sure, i’ll shoot it.

i try to keep this space a politics-free zone, at least on my part. freedom of speech, freedom of expression, though. he has his hat, i have mine.