big SNOW big ICE

the last few days the forces of winter at work, snow, ice, snow, dangerous but very beautiful; life goes on. I left my pickup truck in the Lowe's parking lot overnight, Jim fetched me from work and drove me to work the next day. Two days off in a row, Monday and Tuesday, December 17 and 18, it's nice to stay put, do little. Matt and Lauren say they want me to visit with them in California and I think I'll actually go, likely in February...just as the dreariness of winter begins to ache. Something to look forward to...

My friend Karla's husband died

Karla, my Lowe's buddy, phoned me last night around 10pm to tell me that her husband Les had died...a real shock, he was 61 years old, robust, in great health, a happy guy. I saw him and talked with him a few days ago when he was at Lowe's shopping. Maybe a heart attach, maybe a stroke, the family ordered an autopsy to determine what caused his death.

I talked with Karla today and she seemed deeply sad; at a loss, but facing the reality of all of that. Her sons, Jared and Ryan are with her. A visitation will be held Friday evening and Saturday is the funeral.

This brings to focus my own fate...a hard time for me, the mystery of life odd, unknowable.

papa with Lauren

Here I am with baby Lauren on my back, I'm about 28 years old, a field in Isla Vista near the University of California at Santa Barbara.

when I was 28 years old...

I think I'm about 28 years old in this photo, a self-portrait taken in a mirror. It's nice to see my old SLR 35mm Pentax camera again; I loved it!

Grandaughter Meg is Three Today!

the new sweater, joyous, happy girl!

quick sky fire...

November 13th, the sky is on fire

I split the crotch of my pants at work, an odd chill, no one seemed to notice; at 64 years of age, not much of a sex-target, there's some enjoyment in being anonymous.

Studio~Plants

Saved from the frost...

I brought some tender plants in last night--mostly sedums and stapelias, "Curly" the hanging Guatemala cactus laden with neon pink fruit, other stuff, an asparagus fern and a pelargonium and an African river palm still to come.

more autumn in Milan

What Blue!

Thursday after work, the sun is shining, cool, maybe 55 degrees, very clear! There's nice color around, individual trees and shrubs, not psychodelic but better than last year; a series of early starts at work, 6:30am to 3:30pm, the same tomorrow, Friday, then, the weekend off! A light frost last night...I woke up to find a very soft frost on the windshield of the truck. I had moved most of the tender plants indoors so they seem to have survived in good spirits.

Lauren ran the San Francisco Marathon!

Autumn

Autumn color here in Milan, Illinois

the sky today

a place of my own...4

back deck made orderly

I wish I had a place of my own! Anywhere...Sicily, England, California, Arkansas? The advent of winter, the slant of light, a melencholia in the air--removing my plants from the back deck--major worries of shitty-icy roads this winter, (the last two years in a row I've spun off the Interstate, over the edge in my truck, and had to be pulled out by AAA) these things, other things, make me feel tired. A feeling, really overpowering at times, that I don't know where to be.

I'm into seven years here, in Illinois, out of California. Nothing robust or genuinely fun or interesting about my life here, I've only seen one of my five granchildren face to face (Cate), the other four born in my exile. My kids, Lauren and Matthew, rightfully busy with their own lives, parents themselves, don't email, don't phone, don't initiate contact, don't read this blog, don't see my many, many photos on my Flickr site, don't initiate web chat, don't send birthday cards (like that matters). My peculiar loneliness, my house-mate Jim, laconic, immobile, unwilling, exclusive, annoyed by me...I've asked Lowe's to schedule me for weekend work, every weekend because Jim is often off work on weekends; a way to avoid the tediousness of this difficult cohabitation. Sometimes I regret or dread my time off work, as to work, to get out of the house makes me out in the world, interacting with other human beings.

The emotional shuffle is the isolation of living alone versus the "different" isolation of living in someone else's place. I think I lived on the beach in Oxnard for eight years alone; so it's not impossible, strangers can become friends. Money is a problem. For instance, the "little surgery" to remove a squamous cell lesion on my forehead, about $300 in California, cost $2440 here at Trinity; after my insurance payment, I owe $900...I'm not sure what to do....being solvent, paying my bills, leaves very little for trips to California to see kids and grandkids. Moving on to a place of my own becomes, at this point in my life, only wishful thinking. Moving to California...well, that's a fantasy.

Lauren is running in some sort of San Francisco Marathon on Sunday; she hurt one of her toes the other day and says she still thinks she can run; the next day, Lauren and the family are flying off to Orlando for a Rosenbaum reunion at DisneyWorld. I'm not sure what Matt's doing these days. He phones me from his car cell phone about every two or three months, aside from that, hard to hear, no news is good news.

Bad mood? I'm thinking of dropping out...more...maybe just stop web chat with Lauren. See what happens then? Painting in the studio for her, not great, maybe ready by Christmas.

Matt, Lauren, if you read this, leave a comment--just click on the little "comments" button below, surprise me!

a place of my own...3

Joy's cornfield, adjacent to her house, with open pods of milk weed

a place of my own...2

Black Hawk Monument, overlooking the Rock River, Oregon, Illinois

Yesterday, Joy and Alan, Karla and Vicki and I went up to Oregon, Illinois to see the Black Hawk Monument, a huge concrete statue on a bluff overlooking the Rock River. A very pleasant trip, Joy's home--a modern log house--was a a highlight of the trip (the same people that own the Belgian Draught horses). We had dinner at White Pines State Park lodge, a log-cabin affair built by CCC workers (like my dad, maybe my dad?) during the Great Depression. Dinner, chicken and ribs, was ordinary, but with good company, we had a very nice time. An all-day affair, I left at 11am and got home at 11pm in the midst of a gully-washer rain storm.

a place of my own...1 Autoritratto

...a Self Portrait in Shadows
area where I'm making a new garden


I have had two days in a row off from Lowe's...a rare event. Yesterday I went on another road trip with Joy and Alan, Karla and Vicki, generally to Oregon, Illinois to see the Black Hawk Monument on the Rock River.

Today, Thursday, an at-home day, Jim, my house-mate wanted my plants removed from the back deck. A Midwestern reality, many things that grow outdoors beautifully for spring and summer and fall, fade and wither and die in the winter. So, although a little early, the back deck is more or less orderly and barren again, awaiting powerwashing, clean-up, and growing things that need to winter over in the house are lined up to be brought in before frosts come. I've planted some new enchinaceas and scabiosas, also Madonna Lilies, which will survive in or below the ground for the winter and pop up in the springtime; tomorrow, time permitting, I'll move some irises into the same area with little bulbets of allium, creating a new garden area with established roses and dwarf evergreens already there.

the landlord

Jim's the landlord; he owns the place where I live. A good friend, we don't see eye-to-eye on every issue, but we manage to get along.

~Katie Lopez~

Rachel's niece, Katie Lopez, 26 years old on October 5th, died in Oxnard, California yesterday from the complications of stomach cancer. She leaves two young boys, her partner, her mom and dad, and a sister. I remember her as a witty, spunky, energetic, bright kid who always seemed to be smiling. Life is sometimes very swift, too brief.

Katie did not want a funeral or a memorial so her family will gather with friends for a barbecue in the park for an upbeat gathering.

I will remember Katie...

Me---again!

Me at the entrance to the Maquoketa Caves, State Park, Iowa

I'm a little too claustrophobic to actually go into the caves at Maquoketa, so next best thing, a photo on the edge, going down some stairs. Vicki took this photo which I really like. I forgot to turn the flash off, so some glare, like on the tip of my nose, but I look like I would want to look. A sense (at least to me) of something "inner"...inner life, inner thoughts, inner being, intelligence, hard knocks--they show. And that's good. This was sort of midway in our Saturday rural Illinois-Iowa outing. A good time.

David in the Alien Corn

Near Erie, Illinois September 30, 2007

This is an "edited" version of a photo that Vicki took of me near the parking lot of the Shell Truck Stop where you turn off to enter into Erie, Illinois. Originally it was too red, swarmy with weird tones of red, a problem with the camera. I sent the bad photo to Lauren and she "photo-shopped" it and now it looks fairly decent.

Cate's Song

My grandaughter Cate Rosenbaum asked her mom for a piece of paper so she could write down a song she had made up. After a while she came back to her mom and presented (see photo) a page of text. She asked her mom to sing along. When Lauren, her mom, was unable to decode or fathom the "song", Cate was a bit surprised. So, a helpful child, she sang the song to her mother, prompting her mom to follow the text. I think this is a lovely invention and the notion that Cate would put down to paper her "tune"...well, that's bright!

Great Circle Tour

Yesterday I went with friends from Lowe's on a 170 mile journey through rural Illinois and Iowa. First to Erie, Illinois, to see Joy and Alan's modern log house-home and to see their Belgian Draught horses.

From there we drove through very rural roads of Illinois into Iowa. We stopped at Alamosa to visit the terminus of the "Orpahn Trains" that, for nearly 100 years, brought orphans from New York City to relocate them to Iowa and Illinois farms and factories. Not always a good adventure for the orphans, some just infants, many were adopted but used as farm laborers or factory workers, and all lost all their ethnic or cultural identities, many from Eastern Europe, or Jews from Poland and Russia, today there is a statistically high incidence of Tay-Sachs Disease in Iowa-Illinois areas where these orphans were re-settled.

We went to Maquoketa Caves State Park in Iowa and from there to a restaurant about three miles down a gravel round called Bluff Restaurant, where we enjoyed the "all-you-can-eat" fish dinner--Pollock, an ocean fish, cole slaw, thick broiled potato "chips" and a pitcher of beer...a great feast in a very unlikely place.

On the way home we stopped at the Mississippi Palisades State Park (Illinois) and watched as the sun was setting to the west, over Iowa. We travelled to Savanna, Illinois and went to the Savanna Produce Market an in-door/outdoor ancient barn, loaded with tons of local produce, and for autumn celebrations, gourds, Indian corn, pumpkins and squash.

A great adventure for me; probably the best trip I've had since living here...good company, great adventures, good food...I had a wonderful time.

( PHOTOS ABOVE...I haven't learned how to place photos into text, so, as they appear here, they are a little out of order and have no discriptors. The first photo (top) is pumpkins at the Savanna Produce Market; the second photo is "Honey, Joy and Alan's female colt, born May 1o, so about 5 or 6 months old; third photos is the depot in Alamosa where "Orphan Train" kids disembarked for new destinies.)

Der Kinder Rosenbaum

My Rosenbaum grandkids, (L-R) Cate, Anne, Meg in Hallowe'en drag, like sweet insectual Fairies in combat boots, Anne in the middle, a plump pink bug of some kind. These, the Rosebaum kids, children of my daughter Lauren and her husband Mike.

Curly's making fruit..(Epiphyllum guatemalense monstrose)

This is an "update" photo of the cactus fruit--October 3, 2007. I came home from work and birds had been working over the fruit. I tasted it, bland to sweet, maybe a little like fejoia or guava...very seedy, gelatinous...a new adventure.

The strange flowering cactus is making fruit...a Flickr friend, Tony from Sydney, say it's very likely edible. So, comes the time, I'll take a bite and let you know. The fruit starts small and green and turns to a very bright neon pink. The plant flowers in mid-summer, only at night and each blossom last only one night. Apparently the flowers are self-fertilizing because there isn't another pollinator near this plant; I simply rubbed pollen to stigma with my index finger...two hours later the flower closed and the next morning looked dead. Yet, fruit formed. This plant hangs outside on the back deck from about mid-April or May to about mid-October; then, it goes down to a sunny window in the basement room--now my painting studio. It stays there from mid-October to about May, then back up and outside on the deck.

two days off!

The sunrise from a few days ago
magnificent and brief!

The first of two days off from Lowe's; weary in my hips and ankles, and hugging my shoulder, a life lived these days on hard concrete, not beach sand. Oh...I should have painted today but I didn't. I went to Lowe's and bought a trellis for the "Ballerina" rose at the steps of the back deck, and to Fairway for groceries. Tonight, ham steaks for dinner and potato salad and Bush beans, tomatoes with basil for me....mid 80s today, hot, it seems, so a summery dinner.

Those paintings started in the basement, unretouched in all this time. Tomorrow, a goal to paint, one looking like clouds, some solids repainted, more opaque, keeping in mind the colors should bounce a little, not harmonious, not cacaphony, but unexpected edges, one to another...busy areas, calm areas. I've been thinking the surfaces are too small and confining--precious--and that maybe I should work into bigger sizes, still wood panels; maybe some detail to the moulding around the edges, decorative, 1930-ish, or hinges to make tryptychs, piano hinges with a rod down the center so adjustment, reconfiguration would be easy--pull out a central rod and re-attached the panels differently, maybe mantle paintings that could roughly undulate or "corner pieces", convex or concave at interior corners; that's possible, the size of the painting important for the narrative, as important--maybe--as color. New supplies will have to wait, I'm broke, Lowe's forgot to pay me for a week of my recent vacation. They say it'll be added to my next pay period. Meanwhile, no expenditures for art studff, and truck insurance is due, liscense plate renewal is due, $35 due to Dr. Baner, the head surgeon. It'll work out.

Autumn in the air, moments of it, last night at 1am, insomnia, the old, breathtaking shoulder pain, a front rolled over us out of Iowa, no rain but very hard sustained wind that whipped the maple and poplar leaves off the trees outside the computer room window--maybe 25 minutes of that, then calm, the temperature dropped, a few sprinkles. The verdandacy eroding daily, winter in the wings. This riles a depression on the theme of "oh no, again...winter's coming...what am I doing here...no one loves me," it's harder each year to survive, last year, I drove off the interstate in my truck, in the ballet of circles, down into four feet of snow, a long walk home...this is not Santa Barbara!

oh no....back to work!

Monday and back to work, 6:30am to 3:30pm. The two weeks of vacation has ended. The return was not so bad, a social environment, I was glad to see people and they were seemingly glad to see me. My schedule, seven days in a row, my next day off is next Monday. There's talk that I've been moved to work as a cashier in Lumber--which is okay. A nice t-shirt from Yellowstone National Park, delivered to me today via Joy at work, but from Karla--I'll take a picture of it soon.

The cactus "Curly" put out a flower last night...nice.

an excision

I had the much dreaded surgery today, an excision of a squamous cell lesion on my forehead. The procedure took a little less than two hours, no pain, my anxiety calming as the surgery went on, just a local anesthetic, eight sutures, into the Seventh Street Campus of Trinity Hospital, Moline at 7:30am, and out at 9:55am. Follow-up is a visit to the doctor's office to have the sutures removed on Sept 3.

Post-affect: just a little tired, relieved that it's over--on with the "vacation". Maybe I'll paint some more tomorrow--painting again is a highlight of the two weeks off from work, a good thing! Jim is off tomorrow and maybe we can drive to Iowa to look for some Damar varnish on that side of the River.

Doing it!

A very lovely, sunny Saturday! The days of rain seem to have passed; not too humid, not too hot there's energy and mood to get some things done.

I started three oil paintings...seemingly "good beginnings"...like they might go somewhere. I also gessoed a bigger manufactured (cheapy) canvas; now it looks fairly good, a wonderful surface. I'm only lacking some Damar varnish, not easily available here...I'll find some, across the River, on-line, it becomes more important later. Over all, I'm pleased with the set-up, the "studio" and also pleased with myself for getting into the painting...my mother's birthday today, maybe that blesses in some mysterious way the work I've done?

Ideas tend toward Botany...or cloudscapes, or fairly abstract combinations of both. The palettes-colors of all three beginnings are just slightly odd, oranges, lavenders, blues, odd greens, but all are so preliminary I don't know what's permanent and what is not...as layers advance there can be big changes.

So I'm pleased to have started...last time I painted I was staying in Alton, Illinios, maybe eight years ago. This newly started batch seem related to the work I did in Alton, smaller, freer.

To keep at it is the thing! Surgery for some squamous cell lesions on my forehead early Monday morning--that should not be a major ordeal--then a few more days of vacation to get the paintings I have started into shape. Or the art process on-going, it would be nice to be anxious to come home from work so I can work on my paintings! Or wintering down there in the studio, hot coffee, a sweatshirt, work at my little easel. I have to get Jim to move my track lights so that working at night, in the dire light of dark winter here...is easier.

A few days ago Jim went down to the basement and overhauled, cleaned out, made bare a workroom next to my bedroom. I had been napping on the couch upstairs--some pain in my shoulder, loaded with ibuprophen--and when I woke up I discovered that Jim had made a "studio" for me. With some consideration, this is probably the best place I've had to paint for decades. The intention of my two weeks of vacation from Lowe's was to become a "famous artist". Now, as of Friday of the first week of vacation, I've done nothing. The imposing logic--now--is that six bad paintings would be better than one careful "great one". With the place to do it, paint, today seems the day. I've moved an easel, my art table, art supplies, an old rack for storage, my CD-player/radio into the studio space.

Emblematic of a place to paint and time to start it, the photo below is of some old palettes, smeary with dried pigments, still brilliant with the colors that make me happy and keep me busy. Seeing the old palettes excites me!

Lauren says she's currently into "green" so I let ideas percolate that concern "green"...maybe something Mississippian, sylvan, horizontal, the humid miasma of this place, with some form of sky over all, gray, rain, a parting of clouds, some Midwestern blue peeking through. Or Robert says I should do a self-portrait...maybe down the road abit. But the issue is really to paint; it doesn't matter at this point what to paint...going into the new studio, setting out pigments, putting it onto my gessoed wood panels, stepping back...that's the breakthrough.

Stapelia blooms...

Matthew gave me a cutting of a little Stapelia and it's has decided to bloom; a star-shaped flower, slightly odorous, foul, it attracts flies. This is a slight variation on a former, long lost Stapelia that bloomed in a cracked terra cotta pot on the rickety front porch of our old house on Ronan Avenue, in Wilmington, California...sixty years ago, a faultless memory of something so insignificant. Last Saturday I bought another kind of Stapelia from a woman at the farmers' market in the Trinity Hospital parking lot, for 75 cents; it's also blooming, a cluster of buds, the one flower that's open, a dark oxblood color, small, also star-shaped, perfect, the inner texture like velvet.

stormy weather

Thursday, August 23, 2007... A series of powerful and drammatic rain storms has passed over this area in the last few days. Yesterday afternoon, an uncanny darkness and murmorous, rolling, distant thunder, then stiff winds, then blasting sets of rain, coming from the west, out of Iowa, across the Mississippi River, darkened the sky at 6:30pm as if it were 9pm. Lightening flashed every few seconds as the storm moved above into Illinois.

a beginning

Milan, Illinois, USA

The second day of vacation from Lowe's. My good intention--to use this time to paint--has been stalled. My left shoulder blade-shoulder-arm, seized with some new pain (arthritis or rheumatism?) limits how much I can do. Jim cleaned out a room in the basement next to my bedroom for me to use as a studio; a good space, good light, uncluttered, I need to move an easel in there, my drawing table, other things, and become familiar again with the efforts to make paintings.

Not easy, Jim home this weekend, both days, Saturday and Sunday, I'm finding it easier to have my "off time" alone. I've asked Lowe's to schedule me to work all weekends and I suspect they will. He doesn't instigate discord, but, being with him for long periods of time, undiluted, I feel edgey, just nervous. The problem is within me--or mostly so.

Very welcomed rain, off and on, all day today, often very dramatic, comfortable. A self-portrait of me today on the back deck...