Medusa... with doll parts

I've been having a summer slow down. I just haven't been able to come up with blog subjects that are interesting and noteworthy... until this afternoon.
My daughter in law, Robbin, sent me this photo that she took at the Exploratorium in San Francisco today. She took the Beans (my grandchildren) to see all the wonderful things there are to see in this amazing place.
This is the photo she sent me.

Scary isn't it? Just one of the most bizarre thing you've ever seen? It's completely made up of doll parts... feet, hands, body parts and a couple of very wicked eyeballs. Even the beam of light coming in from the window adds to the strange feeling of the piece. It's called Medusa and the artist is Freya Jobbins.
I will be going to the Art Is You workshop in Petaluma this fall, with my sister, and one of the classes that we are going to take is called Wild Things. The teacher, Clarissa Callesen, will show us how to make strange dolls from old stuffed animals and doll parts. My daughter in law thought that "Medusa" would inspire us for this class. It certainly does.

Then, my oldest son spent last week in Las Vegas. He sent this photo of the downtown casinos and the fire that was burning on the hills outside of town on Mt. Charleston. I think this is a really good photo and wanted to share it with you.

 I would love to see Las Vegas again. We've only been there once, many years ago. It was 118 degrees in the shade. Now, that's "fry an egg on the sidewalk" weather. We saw Arnold Schwarzenegger‎ at Lake Mead, asked him for an autograph (for our boys) and he refused. He said he didn't sign autographs on vacation. I've never forgotten that. I didn't vote for him when he ran for governor. Maybe that was my way of saying, "What would it have hurt to give us an autograph for our boys." There were other reasons I didn't vote for him, but that incident has always stuck in my craw. This was before the Terminator, before Maria and before politics. He was just starting out. He was bodybuilding and had been in a few movies. There was no one around. He had three bodyguards with him, on an empty dock. What would it have hurt?
Las Vegas is bigger and has more amazing casinos now. It kind of looks like Disneyland doesn't it?
Some day we will go down there again, in Fall or Winter, and then the ol' Prospector and I could continue into Arizona and drive to the town of Williams, where you can get on a train and go on a tour of the Grand Canyon. Just another trip to add to our "bucket" list.
Hope your weekend was a relaxing one. Take care.

Wordless Wednesday: Mama Finch Guarding Her Eggs

Pigeon Alliance at Joe's Crab Shack

There are always pigeons. They're not the same as seagulls and rats at the water's edge, but they are always around and they interest me. Living a life of scavenging and close calls, here, they seem to find purpose under the feet of man.

As we ate our dinner over the waters of the Sacramento river, we began to notice something scurrying under the tables.

Vague forms... here and then gone. I could see that these little land rovers were not mice or rats but birds... pigeons to be specific, and moving at the speed of light under and through the tables on this open deck.
I grabbed my camera and tried to document the coming and goings of this bird of opportunity.

Moving at a fast pace, grabbing a tidbit and  scampering away quickly.
This reminded me of another group (gang) that use to come into a store that I worked in just before I got married. It was in Berkeley, California in 1964. I was working for Roos Atkins across from the University of California. We sold wonderful, rather expensive clothing  and there were some folks who thought that they should have these clothes and not pay for them. They would come in "gangs" and split up. One would occupy a sales person while the other would take things to the dressing rooms. Eventually, we received photos of these gangs and were able to alert the managers if we saw one of the "gang members" come into the store.
It's a little harder with pigeons.

They tend to move more quickly and seems to disappear into thin air.

This one is vanishing  into nothingness. Do you see this? His head and front foot are almost gone and his shadow is blending into the concrete. He's disappearing. I knew something fishy was going on. I would try to take a picture and all of a sudden... the bird wouldn't be there. 

When I got home I read up on these birds. Here is all the information you will ever want to know about Pigeons.

After all, they have carried messages, stopped wars and filmed secret meetings with foreign countries.

 

Yes, I had to laugh too. 

I guess we shouldn't laugh at all because there are between 17 and 28 million pigeon type birds in this world and, as Gandhi said, "... 100,000 Englishmen simply cannot control 350 million Indians, if those Indians refuse to cooperate." (Substitute mankind for "Englishmen" and Pigeons for "Indians".)

So, I think we need to have a little more respect for these pretty and intelligent birds.

They walk kind of funny

  but then... I can't fly, so who am I to criticize.

We had a great lunch and the pigeons did the rest. That floor was really clean compared to most restaurants.

Did you know that Some Sikhs also feed pigeons because they believe that when they are reincarnated they will never go hungry if they have fed pigeons in their previous life.  Other religious groups in India believe that when a person dies his or her soul assumes the form of a bird (normally a pigeon) and therefore by feeding birds they are caring for the souls of their departed ancestors. Interesting theory. 

If this is true, more respect for these birds is in order.

Hope you're having a peaceful and relaxing Sunday.

History in River town.

The Prospector surprised me with a proposition on Wednesday. Now, you have to understand that we have been married for many years and I don't, as a rule, get propositioned much. So this was kind of exciting.
He offered to take me to Old Town in Sacramento, take the Historic River Tour and buy me an early dinner... all in time to get back home to feed the dogs.
"Yes!" I said, "That sounds like fun."...  feeling that this was a most magnanimous moment on the Prospector's part and that it really sounded like the kind of clean fun two people could have and not have any regrets in the morning.
So, I said "Yes!". He called and made reservations. We left the dogs outside, which Carl wasn't too happy about but, Oh well... when excitement calls... you just have to ignore the offended little Corgis and leave quickly.
We drove down to Sacramento to OLD TOWN. This is where Sacramento began. It was the port on the  river where everything was happening during the Gold Rush.
Now it's a fun, tourist attraction with all kind of stores, restaurants and museums.

While we waited for our boat to depart,

We walked along the boardwalk for a few blocks and split a corn dog to tie us over until we came back from the tour. I'm sure we could have made a better choice but... it was a fried delight with mustard and catchup in a paper boat. It was cheap and fast. I did buy water to go with it, so that kind of redeemed the bad choice. (Not really.). I like to think that the water wash away some of the grease.

We also walked through a huge candy store. I emphasize "walked through" because I wanted all of you to know that we didn't lose control completely with the "junk" food.We bought nothing.
I think this store was appropriately named "Candy Heaven".

We met this bear, on the sidewalk. He was make entirely of  Lego's. Cute and amazing.

And we made a mental note to check out Joe's Crab Shack when we returned for dinner.

We picked up our tickets for the river tour and walked down to the dock.

This was our tour boat. The Capitol Hornblower was its name. It looked sturdy and reliable. We boarded the frigate with a few other tourist and a whole classroom of what looked to be "private" school 6th graders. 

It took me back a few years to my visits here and to the Capital building with a bunch of 6th graders from Pine Grove Elementary School. I was "in charge" of five or six of the children in our classroom. I don't think that I have ever fully recovered from the experience.

So... we oldsters were allowed on first. Then the children came aboard. Some ran around like wild Indians but on the whole, they were pretty well behaved. 

We went up to the second level and watched the "first mate" untie the ropes and close the doors.

There was no escape now.

 We were moving out, around the other tour boat and into the Sacramento River.

We pulled out and passed the Delta King Hotel, a floating hotel that. without Corgis waiting at home for us, we could have stayed on overnight. I was beginning to understand that without 10 chickens, two Corgis and forty two acres to take care of, there are a lot of exciting and different things to do outside of our little town in the foothills. Maybe I will surprise "the old guy" with a night on the Delta King for his birthday. What fun that might be.

When we passed this old paddle wheel showboat, it made me want to burst out singing  Ol Man River or Make Believe, as folks waved to us from its decks. It made me think about high school and my" life upon the wicked stage" when I sang "Bill" from Showboat, sitting on a piano in fishnet stockings and a beautiful dance hall costume. Those were the good ol' days when I could sing and loved the smell of grease paint and the magic phrase was "Break a leg." for "Good luck."
Do you remember the lyrics?

I used to dream that I would discover
The perfect lover someday.
I knew I'd recognize him if ever
He came 'round my way.
I always used to fancy then
He'd be one of the God-like kind of men
With a giant brain and a noble head
Like the heroes bold
In the books I've read.

But along came Bill
Who's not the type at all,
You'd meet him on the street
And never notice him.
His form and face,
His manly grace
Are not the kind that you
Would find in a statue,
And I can't explain,
It's surely not his brain
That makes me thrill -
I love him because he's wonderful,
Because he's just my Bill.

Well, the year after high school I found "my Bill" but he had a different name. 

Yep, I still have "my Bill" after 47 years... and, unlike the "Bill" in the song, he has a giant brain... and a good heart too. .. and he's still good looking... and he's always ready for a great adventure.

We navigated out into the river and passed this interesting looking building. The "first mate" was telling us the history of the river front and said that this was a new water intake plant for the city. Eighty-five percent  of Sacramento’s drinking water comes from these neighboring rivers. To collect water, the City has two water intake structures, one located on the American River and one located on the Sacramento River.
This is the old intake that was replaced by the new one above.
This little guy just couldn't keep up with the population explosion.

And around the bend in the river, next to highways 5 is the Jab boom Street Bridge. It's a swing bridge and it's actually on the American River.

There is a great city park and beach area here.
This is the confluence of the American and the Sacramento River. You can clearly see the beautiful water of the American River mixing with the cloudy and muddy Sacramento River in the photos above and below.

 Our tour speaker said that the American comes down from the mountains to the east bringing its clear mountain water. The Sacramento, comes down from the north and picks up a lot of sediment in the central valley from the small creeks and ditches that run into it. The difference is striking.

This is what it use to look like before anyone was here. Beautiful. with many different kinds of trees and bushes... but very prone to flooding.
We moved on down the river as she told us a lot about the history and how the river had to be tamed and land had to be filled in before people could live in this area.
A levee system was developed early on to keep the river under control and there is an ongoing concern about the age and condition of these levees to this day. I wonder at the common sense of the early pioneers that came here and decided to start a city. I know it had to do with a river,  the transport of goods to and from San Francisco and of course, the Gold Rush but, the whole area is land between rivers. It's still a series of flood planes that are only protected by an antiquated levee system.
We moved slowly down the river as we listened to its history, lulled by the sound of water against the ship and the sounds of Seagulls, Cormorants, Egrets and Geese... and some other birds I didn't recognize.

 The kids moved like the ripples of the ships wake, from the bow to the stern ... hanging over the edges of the ship railings and coming in and out of the wheelhouse, where the Captain talked to them and answered questions.
They all seemed to be lulled by the river's magic.

I wished that my grandson's could have been with us. They would have loved this ride.

We came to a group of apartments that moored some beautiful boats waiting for their owners. The Prospector said that this houseboat was just about right for us to vacation on.

I had to agree. It was NICE. It even had a slide off the back end for the grandkids.
Truth be told... this is more what we could afford.

 And then, reality hit.

This was probably more in our price range.
Still, it would be nice to have a place to come and stay on this river. It's very relaxing here. It's a certain kind of lifestyle... laid back... slower paced.
So we continued for another half mile or so until I saw a place that I recognized.

A restaurant called the Virgin Sturgeon. My friend, "C" brought me here one time for lunch when she lived in her apartment. It is a very popular place to eat. I love the name.
We turned around here and started back toward Sacramento proper. The weather was warm and beautiful. There were lots of folks out fishing and enjoying the beautiful day.

The area  on the west side of the river was wild in some areas,

giving you a good idea  what Sacramento was like before there was a city.

Our tour boat went back toward Old Town and continued south, under the Tower Bridge.

 This is looking south with the sun on it's far side.

 This is a view of the downtown area of Sacramento from the river. The white buildings on the lower right are the new additions to the Crocker Art Museum. We didn't have time to visit the museum but we will take another day and come down to see it.

As for the Tower Bridge... it looks so pretty with the sun on it. It was painted gold because we are after all, the golden state and this is its capital.

 The Tower Bridge is a vertical lift bridge. A very beautiful one. I loved taking pictures of it.

This was taken almost directly into the sun. from the north side , just as we came under it.

As we headed back into port, we passed the river side of Joe's Crab Shack

 and decided that we couldn't get off of the boat fast enough.
We said thank you to the captain of the ship, almost got run over by a couple of hungry children as we walked up the ramp walkway , walked into Joe's and sat out on that balcony you see in the photo above.
Then they brought us THE MENUS.

The Prospector had a Crabcake Cesar Salad and I had a mixed plate of shrimp, fish, dirty rice and some kind of crab cakes in a shell. OMG! Was it all good. We had iced tea and shared the food. I can't begin to tell you how good it was.
 That's when I saw something underneath one of the tables. Something moving quickly and with purpose.

I'm going to stop now. I will tell you about the birds tomorrow. It's almost 11:00 p.m. and I can't see the computer screen anymore.
Sweet dreams...

Just wondering...

"Even if you think the Big Bang created the stars,

don't you wonder who sent the flowers?" ~Robert Brault~

Wordless Wednesday: Tomatoes and "Beans"