Fleeing the Quiet and Getting my Groove Back ....

Yesterday I flew out of church to go pick up Jessie. Got to the administration building, called the person I was supposed to call. No answer.

Wait.

Call again.

No answer.

Wait some more.

No answer.

Get in my car to go get my daughter - off site pass be damned.

The people at Jessie's 'home' were very nice about it and whispered "just take her" - so don't tell y'all ...

And off we went for our abbreviated day together.

And since Jessie has a spirit that exudes happiness, joy and love - it is hard not to perk up a bit when she is around - even as you try to keep up with her constant about faces on what she wants to do at any given minute. I am no longer used to Jessie's 'flitting about' and sometimes it is exasperating - but .... she's my girl, my friend, my teacher, my charge and I love every molecule in her body - so we flitted together for a few hours.

Suddenly - an hour before we really needed to, she told me she was ready to go back. So off we went.

Got back home to an extremely estactic dog who loudly demanded her pigs ear treat for keeping the house free of riff raff and pirates and wanted bouncy ball. Gave in on the pigs ear - although she had already had one that day - when I brought Jessie home. Apparently the dog cannot tell time, nor count ... or she is faking it. Then played bouncy ball with her in the back yard - a poor mans (OK, an uncoordinated woman's) Frisbee and Charlie looks upon it with disdain. Give her a few weeks to forget her Frisbee sessions and she will think it is cool again.

Into the house and onto my computer - with my camera book in front of me - reviewing how to change the f-stop, ISO setting, shutter speed, light metering and exposure indicator adjustment. I am headed to Australia in 9 days and while there - Gary got a wee bit smarter than we have been in the past and already has our tickets purchased for 4 days in Cairns (pronounced 'Cannes' for no reason in the world that we can come up with except they wanted their own snooty film festival locale) and 5 days (6?) in Melbourne. Hotels booked - in the past we tried to do this at the last minute and it never worked out.

S0 lots of photo ops and I will have my camera ... shooting without a net. Need to know this stuff without having to look it up in a book.

An hour later the quiet was creeping in. Funny since I had my iPod blasting on the surround speakers in the great room - blasting so loud the windows would rattle with the beat of the low bass. And I started to panic. It usually takes about a day to get into the swing of Gary being gone ... I am generally not morose for long. I have a system: he leaves, I'm depressed and morose for a day or so, then resigned, then productive for a few days, then I slowly descend into my psycho state that is the 'no Gary' state until I see him again. I was supposed to be moving into 'resigned' today, dangit!

So, I grabbed all three cameras, my tripod, the dog, my drink and fled the house. Headed out to find things to take photos of in the dark.

A favorite (and close) church was my first stop:

Storage sheds near the church parking lot:



A tree on the church grounds:

Then off to a little strip of cottages that are used for commercial purposes. This is all on a very busy road and what could look weirder than a woman with a tripod taking random shots of buildings ... with her dog - in the middle of the night?

Was happily clicking away (and waiting since these are all 30 second exposure times) when two cars decided that this would be an excellent place to come and start a fight. Nothing like angry men to make you acutely aware that:

a) it is FREAKING LATE

b) you are alone

c) my best 'self defense' weapon I had with me at the time was the dog and the most I could expect from her is that she might ... just might tinkle on their shoes - MAYBE

So, decided this was a good time to take my tripod and flee. Didn't get all the shots that I wanted to, but I did like the ones that I got before the rumble started.

My next stop was going to be an old abandoned Sugar Factory next to the railroad tracks, but call me crazy, being in fear for my life sort of put me off heading to an abandoned building ...

So - on the drive home, my veins pumping all sorts of adrenaline, I realized that I had DONE IT! Being fearful for your life (and a wee bit fearful for the life of your dog ...) sort of puts things in perspective ... and I had flipped over to 'resigned' ...




... just waiting for that 'productive' part to kick in ....