Rainy day
It’s a rainy day, but it hasn’t rained so much in a while, so I’m happy.
The trickle outside reminds me of home. It is gray today, but there’s much to be grateful for.
There are already blossoms on some trees, and buds on others. It’s looking like spring, but it’s only February.
We’ve had a long string of happy, shiny days. Sometimes the skyline is still smoggy; it’s hard to see the mountains until you get close.
But Heather and I went for a drive a few days ago.
The night before, Heather had taken me up in to the foothills, near a park she wanted to check out. It was pretty dusky when we got there, but we agreed we’d have to come back to the park.
So we went out the next day. We settled on making a picnic. I made spinach artichoke dip, my new obsession. But I decided we should drive a different way, and suggested another road out of town. Still going east, but it would be somewhere neither of us had been before.
Drove on and on, ’til we go to the foothills. I still get excited the first time I see their silhouettes.
We took winding curves, sometimes going at a crawl, negotiating sharp turns near falling rock signs.
Some of the views were quite breathtaking. So was the poverty, in places.
We drove through a town of 30 people. We saw homes broken down, trailers. We saw what amounted to an open junkyard and farm on either side of a tiny, narrow road in the middle of nowhere. Pigs and cows right there.
There were a lot of cow crossing signs.
A tree hung with bicycle reflectors.
Quirky things off the beaten path. Things you don’t expect to see here. We don’t live in the rich part of town. And poverty is easier to see.
But with all the scary tales of housing prices skyrocketing, it was pretty weird to see places broken down. Because people can’t afford anything else, in this golden land. The one people are supposed to want to flock to.
We saw a huge McMansion overlooking a valley filled with tiny, junky houses. Wondered how that made the people below feel.
Kept driving, trying to find this dam as somewhere to go to, and ended up at the same place we’d been the night before.
At the park.
Laughing at the thought of ending up the same place, we decided to take our picnic.
It was so warm, I was wearing sandals. But after sitting in the shade for a few minutes, with the breeze and a looming hill beside us, I broke out a sweater, and Heather her jacket.
It was still a beautiful day.
Heather was learning how to take photos with a nice camera. Here are some I’d like to share. I think she did a great job. Has captured stuff better than I’ve been able to already. But I’ve got my eye on a nice digital. Watch out then.
This is a closeup of flowers. There are some beautiful flowers blooming around here already. Including some orange ones we haven’t taken a picture of. But they’re everywhere.
I can argue about the subject matter, but this photo is well-composed and has a nice background shot. Heather’s playing around with depth of field in this one.
This photo struck me when I first saw it as stunning. The colors are bright. The tree is pretty. The background is nice too.
I like this photo because it has interest in the foreground, but also gives an excellent view of the mountain, or foothill as people might call it around here. I’m sorry. If it’s bigger than a landfill hill, it’s a mountain to me.
Sounds like a nice trip. I like your style of description. Your short, flat sentences remind me of good Hemingway. The kind of poverty you describe certainly is not what one thinks of when one thinks of California. West Virginia, maybe.
Thanks.
I was talking to my dad on the phone, and he said that after he read that, he remembered our drive over, and just seeing incredible poverty in places like Colorado.
I grew up pretty poor, but I don’t think I’ve seen this poor. I haven’t been to West Virginia, but I’m guessing that it would be along these lines.
Makes me grateful for what I have and what I grew up having, and at the same time, sad. We’re thought of as a rich country, but I have a hard time with that. There’s a decent-sized homeless problem in Fresno. And Washington is notorious for it. Ironic, really, considering that rich and powerful people go there to make the rules for the rest of the country.
You should create a site for your photos, or provide links to download your pics at full resolution. Some of these are beautiful and I’d like to use them as desktop pictures…if that doesn’t offend you or violate your copyright.
About spinach artichoke dip: LOVE IT! Prefer to bake it but, alas, I don’t have an oven in my studio. So, I make do with spread (laughing cow) or cream cheese, garlic, lemon, artichoke, spinach (usually frozen), and salt. How do you make your dip?
When I get to bake it, prefer cheeses that bake well.
On poverty in CA: For me, CA brings to mind ghettos and migrant camps and valleys with illegals. I’ve never been to CA, but it brings to mind this contrast (as throughout the US) of the very rich (Hollywood) and the very poor (urban centers, migrant labor).
I don’t think I thought much about it before I moved. I thought of California as the place everyone wanted to be. At least the adventurous sort of people who worshipped sun and beaches and good times. Thin, pretty people. People, who if they didn’t aspire to be stars, were content to rub elbows with them.
I had none of that ambition. I probably thought of California as a liberal place, but one of decadence.
I suppose if I had been hard-pressed, I would’ve thought about the farm workers, since parts of California, including this part, are so focused on agriculture.
But I probably still wouldn’t have thought about poverty, because poverty is something we often turn a blind eye to. The same way that I probably didn’t think much about the farm workers.
So it’s healthy to see that right in my face. To know that with the beauty, with all the oranges, there’s a seamy side. A side where bodies are found in orchards.
A side where people live in poverty on one end of town, but where people live in gated communities with McMansions on top of each other on the other.
I think it’s healthy to see the unexpected, to be more aware of it, to be less judgmental. Talking about shopping carts isn’t nearly as funny to me as it was.
Mel, sounds like a lovely day in a lovely —if not sometimes poverty-stricken—land.
I think I might go Matt’s route and “borrow” a photo or two from here for subject matter in a painting. Do you mind?
To Wadulisi:
My artichoke dip is pretty easy and very unhealthy to make. I use a bunch of cream cheese, melt it in the microwave (but I bet the stove would work too) and then add some sort of shredded cheese which I melt a bit too. Add some sour cream to add volume. Then I add some diced green onions and cut up spinach (fresh, found that fresh spinach is very cheap here). Drain some marinated artichoke hearts most of the way, but leave a little juice, and then add those. Stir it all up. Use tortilla chips or crusty bread… And yum!
I don’t know how to do anything with fresh artichokes, and doubt I’d be tempted by all the trouble it’d be worth.
And now… I think I probably need to go buy stuff for dip. I’m hungry.
As to Shel… you’re welcome to borrow a photo here or there. If you need higher res ones, let me know. Matt suggested a photoblog, and I’ll consider doing that in the near future. Any of my friends are welcome to liberate photos, and I think Heather thinks that’s OK on hers as well.
On fresh artichokes: that would be a salad of one sort or another.
One salad is with avacado slices, which goes well with leafy lettuce (not that #$@1 iceburg stuff), onion (I’m partial to red), tomato (preferably cherry), and if you do meat, chicken (better grilled, at least seasoned).
Another salad is with pasta (like bowties or spirals), olives (an assortment is nice), onion (sweet vidalia here), tomato (again cherry), and feta.
Yummy!
Yummmm. I’m a fan of avacado. I’d get some sort of nice lettuce too (icky icky iceburg!) and cherry tomatoes. And feta cheese. Definitely feta.
There’s a salad buffet place around here that’s deadly, because you end up piling up so much crap on your plate you would’ve done better eating pizza or something. But at least I get some green stuff in my body.
Hey Beavis,
You have definitely turned into a California girl if you’re eating artichoke hearts - that’s a big thing of Stephen’s.
And you’re not the only one who thinks anything bigger than a landfill hill is a mountain. I get smart remarks about that all the time.
The other thing is - there’s poverty everywhere. Niles had the haves and have-nots - remember Rattenbury’s house? There are no perfect places.
I think I’m going to have to buy some Birkenstocks too.
I do know poverty is everywhere. Yeah, I remember Rattenbury’s house, and then the houses on Third and Fifth Streets. Though there’s been some improvements there.
It just seems that the gap is widening. As it is everywhere. And people like me are stuck in between, but closer to being have-nots because we can’t afford property.