Late afternoon on a beautiful day after Thanksgiving, these are my favorite humans standing in the sun-sparkled ocean.
Shades of Gratitude in Monochrome
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Tag Archives: Southern California
Pink Symmetry
This is the first bloom from my Marie Bracey camellia japonica. Dozens of buds formed, but this symmetrical, ruffled, peony-like beauty is the first that’s fully open.
The camellia is a flowering evergreen shrub with dark, glossy leaves and large, lush blossoms that appear and bloom for several weeks during the fall through early spring period in warmer regions.
Camellias represent a spirit of depth, self-reflection, and inner strength. This plant will need all of those traits to survive a mostly drought environment.
Camellias also symbolize perfection and excellence due to their symmetry. Soon, I’ll have to plant it in the ground, but for this initial blooming season, I’m going to leave it right where it is, at the front door.
As Above, So Below
Did everyone survive 11/11? Are we all freshly intentioned, manifested, and affirmed? I hope so.
I don’t know if I can blame planetary energies or if I must simply and honestly accept full responsibility for the calamity that unfolded for ME yesterday. After watching a few DIY haircutting videos, I THOUGHT it looked easy enough to try a “wolf cut” hairstyle. It’s a cut that works great on curly hair. However easy the videos made it seem, it was for me completely deceptive.
I’m NOT posting any pics, but you can believe me when I say that it was a disaster. I was lucky enough to schedule an emergency appointment with my hair stylist next week, and have total faith in her ability to repair the damage, even as she’s shaking her head while examining my failed attempt.
Today I’m keeping myself far, far away from the temptation to chop off more hair. Since we might actually get rained on in the next few days, I fertilized the lawn and raked up some of the leaves from the mulberry tree. They’re continuing to change color, dry up, and fall to the ground.
As above…
So below…
I love the sound and feel of crunchy leaves, don’t you?
Sunsets on Fire and Devil Winds
Last night’s sunset was spectacular.
We’re in the middle of a moderate Santa Ana weather event with hot, windy, clear skies and such low humidity that my throat is scratchy and my curly hair turned straight-ISH.
It’s also fire season and there were a couple house and vegetation fires in the area, but none close enough for me to worry about evacuating.
When I went for a late afternoon walk, the sky colors were brilliant orange and red, like the world was on fire, and maybe it is.
According to legend, Native Americans associated the strong winds with an evil presence–something fiery and destructive. After Spanish colonization, missionaries altered the term Devil Winds to “Caliente Aliento de Satanas”–the hot breath of Satan. It was subsequently shortened and Americanized to Santa Ana winds.
Next week, the weather forecast calls for rain with a Pacific storm, the first time we’ll have seen sky water in months. Fingers crossed it’ll happen because my garden is PARCHED.
Happy Friday!
Ch-ch-changes | Autumn Colors
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
Ch-ch-changes…
Sing it, David Bowie!
We all fell back last night and gained an hour. For me, It’s always a bit of an unsettling feeling for about a week or so until I get used to it.
More ch-ch-changes…
Did you know that certain trees in Southern California DO change color and lose leaves in autumn?
This is my fruit-bearing mulberry.
The leaves morph into a sunny, vibrant yellow.
Green and yellow against a blue sky.
My garden doesn’t boast any maples that turn red, but these ch-ch-changes mark the hands of time; another autumn, another winter approaching, another year almost over and finished.
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you’re gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can’t trace time
More Vitamin Sea
Glittery sparkles on the water like a million diamonds.
#Tamarack #PacificOcean #California #PhotoOfTheDay
Crime in Carlsbad: Guns, a Samurai Sword, and SWAT
What the heck is going on here?
Sunday morning….
Carlsbad police arrested a 33-year-old man at a motel Sunday after he brandished a samurai sword at paramedics responding to an unrelated medical emergency.
Police were dispatched around 9:40 a.m. Sunday to the Carlsbad Village Inn, at 1006 Carlsbad Village Drive, according to the police.
Officers tried to make contact with the man, identified as Eliot Rauk of Lomita, through the door of his motel room. Rauk yelled through the door, threatening to kill approaching officers and brandished a handgun, seen through the motel room window.
Some areas of the motel were evacuated, with the Carlsbad SWAT team responding shortly afterward.
Rauk barricaded himself in the motel room for several hours while the police department’s Crisis Negotiation Team attempted to contact him by phone.
At 2:36 that afternoon, after police reached him, Rauk exited his room and was safely taken into custody.
After a thorough search of the room, authorities found a samurai sword and a semiautomatic handgun.
Rauk was transported to Tri-City Hospital for a medical evaluation and will be booked into Vista Jail on suspicion of making terrorist threats, unlawfully brandishing a weapon, and threats of violence against a police officer.
Two days before that, on Friday…
There was a shooting on the street in Carlsbad, which is a rare occurrence. I mean, this is a little beach town, not LA or Chicago.
An Oceanside man was arrested after shooting at a police officer during a traffic stop.
An officer with the Carlsbad Police Department stopped the driver for multiple traffic violations Friday night on Madison Street and Oak Avenue.
As the officer approached the vehicle, the driver pulled out a handgun and fired at least one round at the officer, police said.
“The officer immediately sought cover from the gunfire and returned fire with his service weapon,” the department said in a news release.
The suspect, later identified as 25-year-old Oceanside resident Patrick Harold Doherty, drove south about one-eighth of a block before stopping.
The officer called for additional units and a high-risk vehicle stop was conducted when more officers arrived, including a field supervisor and a police dog. The suspect complied with police and was apprehended several minutes later without further incident.
“Neither the suspect nor the officer was struck by gunfire. However, several rounds struck the suspect’s vehicle,” police said. “During a visual inspection of the van at the scene, a ghost-gun type handgun was seen on the driver’s side floorboard.”
Doherty was booked into Vista Jail on suspicion of attempted murder of a police officer, felony resisting, assault with a firearm on a police officer, and an outstanding arrest warrant for driving under the influence.
It seems like there’s no way to live without violence; it’s all around…in small towns, big cities, and other countries like Ukraine and Israel and Gaza.
It’s sad and scary to feel unsafe; how depressing.
(Info curated from Google.)
The Adventitious Line Up
Adventitious: associated with something by chance rather than as an integral part; extrinsic.
I didn’t realize until I checked the photo that all of those seagulls were lined up because my eyes were only focused on the waves. The gulls were an unexpected happenstance.
The term “line up” is usually associated with a row of surfers in a spot where they anticipate a good wave break, in their attempt to catch that elusive best ride of the surf sesh.
Adventitious; an unanticipated word of the day.
Hanging By A Thread
“A spider lives inside my head
Who weaves a strange and wondrous web
Of silken threads and silver strings
To catch all sorts of flying things,
Like crumbs of thoughts and bits of smiles
And specks of dried-up tears,
And dust of dreams that catch and cling
For years and years and years…”
― Shel Silverstein
Hanging by a thread is exactly how I feel every once in a while, how about you?
This is the last of my spider posts, I promise!
You’re looking at one of the many orbweaver spiders that make my garden their home. Yes, they’re fairly large but that’s no reason to be scared of them! Orb-weavers, like most spiders, are highly beneficial and eat lots of insects: mosquitoes, bees, wasps, flies, small moths and butterflies, and even grasshoppers.
This guy was attached to an apple tree but I’m not sure of his ultimate destination…
Green MONSTER
Have you ever seen a Green Lynx spider? I hadn’t until this morning when I saw this Godzilla-sized bright green monster watching me through the patio doors.
I took a photo and then calmly moved him to a safer (for him) location. Peucetia viridans, the Green Lynx spider, is bright green and usually found on green plants. That makes sense since he was right next to a young orange tree I have on the deck. It’s the largest North American species in the family Oxyopidae. The body was about and inch in length and the legs were more than THREE inches long. It was HUGE.
Green Lynx spiders are non-poisonous and rarely bite humans but the bite can be painful. Females, when threatened, are known to spit venom from their fangs (up to 8 inches). If venom enters the eye, it may cause irritation.
My DIL is deathly afraid of spiders, more so than anyone I’ve ever known. On a recent visit, my son and I were enjoying a quiet cuppa and some morning chat about the kids when we heard her screaming, I mean like blood-curdling screams, the kind that, if they heard, neighbors would call 911.
My Angel Boy ran up to see what was going on and I followed. Apparently, she had been on a Zoom call in AB 2.0’s bedroom when she noticed a VERY VERY large spider on his bedspread.
After we ushered her to another room so she could calm down and resume her call, we then searched high and low for the offending arachnid and couldn’t find a thing. I thought her screams might have scared him off, but my son said he actually had seen it before scurrying away and it was literally four inches in size.
We needed to keep looking because if there WAS still a spider in the little guy’s room, we needed to find and relocate it before bedtime.
I stripped the sheets off the bed, shook them out, and found nothing. We removed the top mattress and then the box springs and OMG, there it was, trying to make itself as small as possible in the corner of the bed frame. I didn’t have my phone to take a photo but you can trust me that it was one of the biggest spiders I’ve ever seen.
We ushered it into a box, clamped on the lid, and my son took it outside as far away from the house as he could, while I remade the bed and checked to make sure DIL hadn’t had a heart attack from fright.
I wonder what she would have thought of my Green Lynx with those scary, hairy legs watching her through the window?
Enchanted Seashells | Princess Rosebud 