Life - End to End

This story ends with the happiest event in life. But starts out at the opposite end of the spectrum - with one of life's great tragedies.

Pregnancy has been wrapping itself around me lately. Two expectant daughters-in-law, my daughter also trying to get pregnant and a few friends on facebook also pregnant. And it seems that they are all very open about their experiences and feelings. So much so that it's becoming overwhelming, to say the least.

The first one due to pop was Kevin's wife, Shirley. Over the course of the last year we've become quite close and, given her current condition, her having 2 little boys and no car, and my availability and willingness to be there to taxi or give other help, I hear from her regularly and sometimes at odd times. So when I got a call from her Tuesday morning I wasn't surprised, the baby was due any time. Then when I answered the phone and she was sobbing it still wasn't totally amazing. But the reason for her tears was the shocking part - her uncle, her mother's last living sibling, died during the night, at 52 years old.

Brett had had a hard life and was on the road to better things. He and his wife were living with Mindy and apparently he simply accidentally took one too many pain killers. It happens. He went peacefully in his sleep. He's in pain no more but, once again, the family is reeling from the shock of yet another death.

I eventually ended up giving Shirley a ride down to her mom's to be with the family, then brought the boys home with me, out of the chaos. When the day was wrapping up Shirley insisted that Mindy go home with her and hand occupation of her house over to the family. Here's a high five to Shirley for being cognizant and insistent! Next thing on the list of ways to help her mom? How about a distraction? I know, let's have a baby!

Shirley has had success in prompting her babies to come at her chosen time. This time it wasn't working as well. But she hadn't tried for about a week so she gave it one more shot - and it worked! I got a text from her just when I was about to take my pills to help me sleep that informed me that they were heading to the hospital! Woo hoo! So I put off taking those pills so I could dash to the hospital if that little girl decided to make her entrance quickly. Soon after midnight I got the news that things weren't progressing as rapidly as hoped so I took those pills and went to bed.

Quarter to eight I got a text from Kevin that the doctor was gonna get aggressive and make the labor move along. So I decided to get up and get ready to head to the hospital. As is the way in the hospital, things dragged on and the actions to speed up the labor didn't happen for hours. I just hung around in the room with them, I had my laptop and was editing my old photos. And felt completely out of place. But they assured me it was OK to be there.

They finally got around to taking the needed measures and the labor still seemed to creep. I was still sitting in the room with them. Eventually she was about half way there and they gave her an epidural to ease the pain. Nearly 3 hours later she was almost there, ready to go. I left for the waiting room and about 10 minutes later I got a text from Kevin: "Done". WHAT!?!? 10 minutes!?!? Cool! Maybe it was only 5 minutes - it was FAST!

I got back to the room and they were still cleaning things up so I waited outside in the hall listening. I could hear the newborn cry that sounds so much like an animal. I could hear Kevin and Shirley talking softly. Then I heard Shirley ask "It's a girl, right?" Too funny! But understandable, they wanted their girl so they could consider their family complete and newborns are so puffy that sometimes it's hard to tell! Yes, it's a girl!

At last I was allowed in the room. The baby was in the heater peeing on everything when I got in. I got to watch them weigh (7lbs 4oz) and measure (18.25") her and dress her and finally Mom and Dad got to hold their new little girl!

The rest of the afternoon was a blur of family and chaos. For a while, during a lull, the whole little family was sleeping. Kevin was snoozing with his baby girl sleeping in his arms. Eventually Joe and Shayne came to visit via their Auntie Rachyl. They brought gifts and Joe was anxious to meet Elise. Shayne, on the other hand, was not. It's gonna take him a little while for it to sink in, I think. When Denny and Heather came Hunter was right there, VERY interested in the newest tiny Sizemore cousin. So the events that I'd stuck around to photograph ended up happening in front of about 3 or 4 cameras! A very well-documented first bath, etc!

Finally around 6PM I was ready to go home. It was a hectic, emotional 2 days. Not to be forgotten for a long while, especially for Mindy and Shirley.

A Glimpse into the Past...

My Uncle Eugene was the last family member to live in my Granny's old house in California. They bought the house in 1965 and moved from LA to Lakewood a year after we did. This became, for about 3 years, my and my sister's home away from home. I remember walking there at lunchtime to make my grilled cheese sandwiches, then walking back to school - elementary school! And we spent every school day there after school as well as my mom worked in a dental lab.

Well, Granny died in 1994 which left Grampa and Uncle Eugene. Grampa lived til his 92nd birthday in July 2000. So then it was down to Uncle Eugene.

Uncle Eugene never married nor had any kids and was always taking in strays - people strays, that is.

I'm not sure what the living arrangement was for the 8 years until his death in June of 2008. When he died I believe there was him, his girlfriend and a couple other people that needed a place to stay living in the house. He did a good job of taking care of everything until he got too sick in January of that year and the place began to fall into disrepair and neglect.

So in November of 2008 we, Mom, Dad, my sister, her husband, Mom's cousin, Rick and I had the job of cleaning out the place. That was QUITE a job and I blogged it pretty thoroughly, look back at these links to see that story...

When I returned home I brought back my uncle's HUGE van and filled it with treasures from the old homestead.  Furniture, artwork, knick knacks, etc.  All old memories of my childhood.  I also brought a shoebox full of pictures and negatives, mostly negatives.

A few weekends ago Sarah was here with some old photos from her mom's side of the family and Rick was scanning them for her.  My appetite was whet.  I looked at the shoebox of old negatives and decided it was time to start scanning.

Well, I think it was last week some time that I finally finished and it came up in conversation so I had to get a rough count - 1200+!  I knew it had to be over a thousand.  Wow!  But what gems I found in that shoebox!

I was used to seeing my mom's pictures of certain places and events but a lot of these pictures I'd never laid eyes on, they were my Grandma's, not my Mom's!  Things I'd only stored in my mind were now presented before my eyes, some of them were things I hadn't remembered at all and some I only had fuzzy memories of.  Such as a visit to Canada to see my Grandma's sister's tobacco farm when I was about 5.  I remember visiting a cemetery, in my mind it was right across the street from the tobacco farm.  I don't know if it was but what I didn't remember is that we visited my great-grandfather's grave!  And there are pictures of Kathy and me standing by it.  I also found pictures of a flood in LA in 1954, the car that my parents drove to Albuquerque, my mom's graduation, my other grandma holding me by a Christmas tree, a birthday party for possibly a cousin when I was just a toddler, and so many others I can't recall.

Most of the negatives were in pretty good shape but some, the older ones, meaning the ones I was the most interested in, from my mother's childhood, had begun to degrade.  I was trying to discern what seemed to make the most difference.  In one package I found some that were very degraded right next to others that were still well preserved.  It seems that those exposed to air had degraded.  Those that were tightly sandwiched together so as to not allow air between them were still fairly well preserved.  The two pictures to the left of this paragraph are an example of this, they were from the same event and were in the same envelope of negatives!

So now I have them all scanned and have begun the touch-up process, some of it is actually done at the time it's scanned.  I have a long way to go.  But it's all worth it.

Dental Malpractice!

I think more people think of medical when they think of "malpractice" but I think we just witnessed some gross dental malpractice that - to me anyway - seems like it could have cost a life!

Let's go back a couple months. Shirley took the boys in for their regular dental checkup, cleaning, etc for a 4 and 5 year old. They found a soft spot on one of Shayne's teeth, or maybe 2, that they determined should be drilled and filled even though they weren't even officially "cavities" yet. Apparently they don't know how to treat children's teeth and they did a bad job. How bad we had no idea until last weekend...

Shayne began complaining and was becoming sick, I'm not sure of the first symptoms. I know they started on Sunday. Kevin and Shirley took him to the local urgent care and they told them to take him to the dentist. Monday at 6:45 AM I got a photo message on my phone of one of my grandsons with a swollen face. I didn't have my glasses on so I thought it was Joe. "bee sting?" was my reply. No, it was tooth problems. Shirley was sitting in the dental office parking lot when they opened to get him in to be seen.

They checked Shayne out and said they couldn't do anything because of the swelling. They gave Shirley some antibiotics and said to come back when the swelling went down and - if it gets more swollen go to the emergency room to get it drained. That's just the kind of news you want to hear.

They took the feverish, lethargic boy home and were unable to sleep well that night, so they all camped out in the living room to be able to watch Shay more easily. Somewhere in the wee hours of Tuesday morning they see that his eye is now swollen shut, the swelling is moving down and back, half his head is now severely swollen. Shay says his throat feels "thick". Time to go to the ER.

I didn't get the whole lowdown on how the hospital visit went but eventually they got him in and hooked him up to IV antibiotics and made arrangements to get him seen by an oral surgeon. Kevin took him down the street to the oral surgeon when they opened. The place was very posh, a high-end surgeon. He looked at Shay's mouth and told Kevin that he'd do the work for only what the insurance would cover because of the horribly botched job the dentist did. He managed to take only one tooth even though 2 seemed to be affected.

Later that day I swung by the house with some ice cream and a "Get Well Soon" balloon-on-a-stick. They were again all sprawled around the living room. I gave Shay his balloon and put the ice cream in the freezer. Almost immediately he started smacking Joe with the new weapon. When I left it was business as usual, a house with 2 rambunctious little boys.

After the fact, though: Shay's tooth actually kinda rotted and may have had an impact on the adult tooth (or maybe teeth) beneath the surface. And if they hadn't gotten treatment I believe the poor kid was headed toward becoming septic.

I think this is what they call "malpractice", don't you?

Lens Envy

I just thought I'd brag a little about the gift Rick got "me" for our anniversary (I say it's ours, he says it's mine). It's a super wide angle lens. My normal lens that I use for day-to-day stuff, otherwise known as my "walk-around" lens in photographer's lingo is a 28-135mm lens. For our cameras 1 to 1, or as the eye sees is about a 50mm lens. Anything with a smaller number is closer than 1 to 1. Lenses that bring the distant objects closer are zoom lenses and have bigger numbers. So my 28-135 is slightly wide angle and zooms in a nice amount too. But I've seen shots with the really wide, or "ultra wide" lenses that completely warp a picture and make for some really interesting stuff. Nothing can be done in Photoshop to mimic this, you just have to have the right lens.

So here is a little comparison of my walk-around 28-135mm lens and the same shot taken with my, er, OUR new 10-20mm lens, both set at the shortest focal length possible (28mm and 10mm)

28mm on the left                                                      10mm on the right

Thanks, Dear, for my - OUR new lens!

Wrap up Frisco to Go...

Saturday morning we still felt that we needed to catch more of the essence of San Francisco. Since our motel was on the far southwest corner of the city and the bridge that we would need to use to leave town was on the northeast we got to choose a route that would offer sights we hadn’t yet seen. We ended up turning into and driving through the Golden Gate Park. It’s similar to the Central Park in New York, a large, partially natural park in the heart of a large city. The west half of the park was the mostly natural part, the east half was where everything was happening. I had already scoped out some spots in the park I would like to see, from a photography point of view and as we drove I spotted one – the Shakespeare Garden. So we visited that, it was quite small but I WANT ONE!! Rick kept hearing a noise that he wanted to check out so we began to wander. We never found out what the noise was but found the Music Concourse, an architecturally stunning amphitheater with benches, trees and grass in front of it. There were a few dozen people doing Tai Chi and a man serenading his wife on the violin.

Next, when attempting to find the carousel, instead found a really neat playground area done in an underwater theme with that really soft, foam ground stuff they use in playgrounds now. We thoroughly enjoyed our impromptu visit to the park.

We made it over to the Fisherman’s Wharf area again so Rick could get the shot of the cablecar coming down the hill that he was yearning for. But that place is where all the action is; Ghirardelli Square, a wooden ship anchored in the harbor, cablecars, bikers, shops, street musicians, etc, etc. We again had a great time wandering and discovering something to shoot around every corner.

One of the things that was hard to ignore was the myriad of modes of transportation available. As every normal city has, San Francisco offers the usual cars, buses, and taxis. Then there’s the renowned cablecars. Some oddities should be expected, though, from a city as colorful as Frisco and there was no shortage of those either. One were these little, bright yellow 3 wheel motorcycles that fit 2 side-by-side called Gocars. They were outfitted with GPS to lead you to all the tourist destinations. There were also tour buses with the tops cut off, similar to the London double-decker buses but not quite the same, much cheesier. But probably the funniest ones we saw were guided tours done on segways. Those are the 2-wheeled vehicles that resemble an old push-mower and are ridden standing up. We saw 3 or 4 groups of around 10 people on these riding down the side of the road, usually wearing brightly colored vests and helmets.

So that pretty much wraps up our trip to the beautiful Bay area. We opted to just hit I-5 and head for home, we’ll save the Oregon coast for another trip so we can spend a 3 day weekend and see everything we want to see there.

In the future, we’d like to go back and spend some time in Grant’s Pass, OR, Fort Bragg, CA on highway 101 and Mendocino, CA on highway 1. All 3 towns had lots of interesting buildings, cars, and people. Very unlike the desolate, nearly dead small towns we ran across on our trip to eastern Washington a couple months back. These towns were all very much alive!

I’m writing this blog on the road, on my laptop. We’re in central Oregon and Rick says “the ‘check engine’ light just came on.” Uh-oh, might be the beginning of another story….

San Francisco Trip - Day Two

Come Friday morning we have about 45 minutes between us and the Golden Gate Bridge. We found our way there and I grabbed my phone to get a picture to send to my family with the caption “the Golden Gate Bridge” and when I got the shot and looked at it there was nothing to see! Too much fog! I should have sent it anyway, it would have confused everyone but it’s what it was! Fog!

We originally thought it would have been a good idea to set up a home base so started to let the GPS lead us to the Day’s Inn on the Beach in south San Francisco but got led right to a photography spot I wanted to try to find – the Palace of Fine Arts. Free parking! It was spectacular. Then we began to meander and promptly got lost. Rick became aware of the need to fill up the car and we couldn’t find a gas station to save our lives! We finally found an edge of town that was flat and found gas for 3.91 a gallon – hey, still under $4! We maneuvered our way to Haight / Ashbury, Lombard Street (the really curvy road), shot a cable car or 2 and “the painted ladies” (no – not what you’re thinking) a set of houses kept original and painstakingly maintained. We headed toward the coast to grab a few sights I saw on the internet that turned out to be a bust, mostly due, I think, to the grey coastal sky, then made some lunch and headed towards the Fisherman’s Wharf and our one and only appointment – our trip to Alcatraz!

There’s really not a lot to say about Alcatraz that you can’t just see in the pictures that we took. It took us 2.5 hours to thoroughly shoot everything we could find. Besides the actual “grey-bar hotel” aka cellhouse, there were many other buildings including a morgue, machine shop, warden’s and guards rooming, a lighthouse, guard tower, water tower, the exercise yard and gardens, a “parade ground” that was overrun with mother and baby seagulls and therefore closed off to the public. Some buildings were mostly intact and some were just shells. There were overgrown gardens blooming everywhere and screeching baby birds and mother seagulls warning you to stay clear. Being the derelict-building-lovers that we are we had a great time!

That was the one place we ended up having to pay parking for and wouldn’t you know it – we stayed just a little over the limit on “the Rock” and our time had expired. We were sweating bullets that we’d have a ticket welcoming us on our windshield but, alas! We lucked out!

We finally headed out to get our room and found it to be in a very quiet end of town, across the street from the zoo, actually. We couldn’t get our internet to work but when we walked 2 doors down to Java Beach to have a dinner of hoagies and hefeweisen we discovered they had great wifi so I walked back and got my laptop. One last shoot attempt was atop “Twin Peaks” which gives a fantastic overview of the city but it turned out to be too foggy. The place was overrun with partying teenagers so it was just as well, I felt particularly out of place up there with all the revelers.

The rest of the story coming up next...

Road Trip Days .5 & 1

Yep, another road trip. We kinda both came up with the same idea simultaneously – San Francisco! Rick negotiated a second week of vacation every year so he decided to take a day or two every now and then and make a bunch of short vacations instead of a long one since we won’t financially be able to do that for a year or two. We’ve discussed the San Francisco idea from time to time because he’s never been there and I haven’t been for quite a few years. My dad had relatives that lived there and we would visit, so I’ve been there and mostly visited China Town. I remember seeing Ghirardelli Square once. And since that’s right across the street from Fisherman’s Wharf we saw that too, I’m sure. But it’s been like (gulp) 40 years! So it was time for another visit.

Rick threw in the idea of doing part of the drive south on the coast highway and seeing the redwoods. We’d drive down I-5 to the southern Oregon border, then slip over to highway 101 or 1.

So that’s how our trip began, we headed straight down I-5 after Rick got home on Wednesday, put a good dent in the driving before our vacation even began you might say! Rick started to feel a little leery about the trip, though, when, in a construction area south of Olympia we hit bump so hard that it turned the wipers on, and then we watched a pop can get thrown into our windshield by a truck before we even got out of Washington!

The rest of that day was uneventful to the best of my recollection. We ended up stopping in Roseburg. I was hoping to have a good experience there since we both had only bad things to say about Roseburg. I’d just run into some very rude people when I stopped there on a previous trip and Rick got a speeding ticket there. Well, our experience was nice, our motel 6 was the nicest room we’ve stayed in so far as a couple. We even got 2 beds! Rick enjoyed being able to spread himself over the whole bed and I could fidget to my heart’s content without fear of disturbing Rick. The wifi worked very nicely too!

We got a fairly early start toward the coast (which was 2+ hours away) but even so, it turned into an exhaustingly long day. I had scoped out a few lighthouses to see while on the coast and we found “The Avenue of the Giants” off highway 101 to get some spectacular redwood shots. We kinda just blew by the Trees of Mystery with the giant Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox statues that seem to be a necessary shot for every tourist driving through to stop and shoot. I was a little bummed that we just flew through the redwoods without stopping for one single picture but, fortunately, the redwoods hadn’t ended and we saw some very fairyland-like settings, with ferns and oxalis covering the ground in the shade of the giants looming overhead. We also did another very touristy thing – we drove through the legendary “Chandelier Tree” that people have been taking pictures of while driving through for over 100 years! Cheesy? Yeah! Worth it? Heck yeah!

The cut over to the coast, to highway 1, was not the 10 mile straight shot that it looked like on the California map I’d picked up at a visitor center in Eureka. Instead it was a twisty, hilly, 22 mile road that top speed averaged in the 20’s, so took us nearly an hour to navigate! But the similar drive along the coast on that infamous highway was breathtaking. The drive from Crescent City to San Francisco was supposed to be a 7 hour drive but I’m sure that was NOT on highway 1. When it got dark and we wanted to eat and find a bed everything was closed and/or locked. We couldn’t even find a place to pull over to eat a bowl of the Costco potato salad that I brought (thank goodness I brought it!). Every “Coastal Access” road was gated and every other one was marked “Private – No Trespassing, No Parking”! We finally just found a wide shoulder and pulled off and ate. Then we decided to just put miles under our tires so I plugged in the GPS and the first thing it did to find “the fastest route” was to get us off highway 1! So back to 101 we went.

At this point, after being on the road for a grueling 15 hours we were just ready to find a room and crash. Even the internet was not calling out to us, only a bed. We got to Petaluma and the first exit had about 5 or 6 motels but Rick said “let’s see what else there is”. About 7 or 8 miles later there was no more town, we’d missed our chance. Next up? Novato in 9 miles. We spotted a Day’s Inn about a mile before town and I insisted that we get off the freeway at the next exit and find our way back to that motel – we were NOT going to miss this one! I don’t recall if there were any more motels in Novato but this one was fine.

Check back in a day or two for the next installment of our summer road trip '11!