Category: Living

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 15, 20268:42 pm

The Cats of University Heights: Besties

Duh. Usually when I shoot with the camera, I also capture with the smartphone so there is GPS location information. Guess who neglected to maintain that practice on April 12, 2025. With so much time passed, I don’t recall where the Featured Image was made. Location is unknown.

These two, nicknamed Besties, are the one-hundred-forty-seventh and -eighth felines found behind door or window. The portrait comes from Nikon Zf and NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR lens. Vitals: f/7.1, ISO 100, 1/640 sec, 200mm; 2:55 p.m. PDT.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 14, 20269:09 pm

My Parents, for Valentine’s Day

I resumed looking through my father’s stash of photo slides, today. The number of bad shots is astonishing, and the Featured Image is one of them. I share it nevertheless, for what it captures of the 1970s and because the couple are my parents.

Photographer is unknown, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there is none. My father easily could have used a self-timer and tripod to capture a self-portrait. There is no date on the slide, but I would guess winter of ’72 or ’73. My father’s father died in June of Seventy-two. My mother pushed for divorce not long later. They look happy enough here, so I assume this is before the marriage disintegrated. If true, each would be 30 years old.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 13, 202610:45 pm

I See a Lucky Day

Some people are superstitious about Friday the 13th; they see an unlucky day. I juxtapose them, by regarding it the luckiest day of the year. Two-thousand-twenty-six is the harbinger of good fortune: Three, count them, three Friday the 13ths—one in March and another in November.

That’s one of the ways I see the world. For years my personal motto was “Why not?” It’s the question to ask whenever someone stops because of perceived barrier. For example, “I can’t go to school today”. Well, why not?

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 12, 20269:09 pm

Cali on My Knee

What’s a good cure for clutter? Bokeh! Tortoiseshell Cali sits on my lap in a quickie portrait made yesterday using Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra. In the blurred background is my makeshift workspace, with Casabelle Mail Center as a desk alongside six-tier bookcase. I purchased the Casabelle from the now defunct Pier 1 Imports in early 2016. Our daughter may visit soon, compelling self-eviction from my home office for her. The new space is messy, and I am relieved you can make out only the kitty. She is quite the lap cat, and demanding about it, too.

I first encountered Cali on June 4, 2014, shortly after moving our daughter into a house she rented with other coeds nearby San Diego State University. Overnight, Cali would squeeze through an open sliding door and crawl into Molly’s bed. The tortie’s ownership would be disputed over the summer months that followed, and she somehow came to belong to our daughter.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 11, 20269:34 pm

Better Beans, British Baked

I love baked beans, but not the amount of added sugar that is typical for the recipes, particularly from canned brands like B&M and Bush’s. My culinary adoration is cultural: Home-cooked baked beans are a Saturday night tradition throughout parts of Maine. The practice goes back to the Puritans, who cooked beans ahead for the Sabbath. That method remains in the Modern era as “bean-hole beans“, which inside a cast-iron pot are buried in burning embers of a campfire to cook overnight.

One canned option does appeal to me. While not the liveliest recipe, being somewhat bland, Heinz baked beans imported from United Kingdom are tasty enough and they have the lowest amount of added sugar—4 grams, for a total of seven—of any variety from any manufacturer. Serving size: Half cup. I last bought them from World Market in summer 2021—two 12-can cases. But the cost currently is too high: $3.99 for a 13.7-ounce can, or $47.88 per case.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 10, 202610:28 pm

So Cold, You’ll Hibernate

Flashback to May 2, 2025. My wife and I are walking along Texas Street, between El Cajon and Meade, in our San Diego neighborhood of University Heights. I see a lid for a product for which I am unfamiliar. Ah, hum. Ice Cream for Bears? Is that because of honey used to sweeten rather than cane sugar or high fructose corn syrup?

The company touts the natural sourcing of ingredients, such as milk from grass-fed cows and honey to sweeten. From a complex sugar perspective, honey isn’t as unhealthy as refined sugar.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 9, 20269:36 pm

The Cats of University Heights: Berry

This is one of two kitties seen sunning behind vented screens along Meade (cross-street withheld). You’ll have to wait for a better portrait before the other joins the series. Nickname, for no particular reason: Berry.

I don’t recall the number of furballs featured from the street, but it’s only a handful. To name a few: Amanda; Chipper; Dragon; Honey Bunny; Mittens; Ninja; Pee-Pee; Siamese; Tink; and Vivienne.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 8, 20269:16 pm

The Head

The Featured Image is an opportunity to shake up the flow of posts with something odd, if not disturbing. The head hangs over a fence along Mission Avenue in San Diego neighborhood University Heights. The photo is from Aug. 10, 2025, but the thing is still there—leering down on people who happen to look up as they walk by,

During any other Winter season, the thang might have been compromised by constant, heavy rains. But this part of California is experiencing unseasonably pleasant weather of warm days with low humidity. Today’s high, for example, was 28 degrees Celsius (82 Fahrenheit) and breezy.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 7, 20269:21 pm

Mystery Pup

The process of reviewing the vast quantity of slides left behind by father continues. My guess is that the majority are from the 1970s, when my father was an amateur photographic fiend. He shot with a Kowa—likely the seT R2—preferring slides to film for their shareability and presumed better longevity.

The Kowa appealed to him for interchangeable lenses with leaf shutters—an innovative design that made the camera nearly silent, which made scaring off wildlife less likely. An avid hunter, later in the decade he put aside the rifle and only shot animals with the camera.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 5, 20269:30 pm

A Fresh Pot of Bean-hole Beans Unearthed

This is what absolutely authentic photography looks like. To digital content, I can apply film or vintage filters using any of several editing apps to make a photo look like the Featured Image. But this is the real deal, as captured by someone using my father’s film camera—likely in June or July 1972 or ’73. That’s a pure guesstimate.

Likely location: The lumberjack camp the Wilcox brothers called “Dodge City“. During the early 1970s, a group of hunters would spend as much as three weeks in the Allagash Wilderness, which is along the St. John Valley in an area also called the Maine North Woods. My Uncle Glenn had jacket patches made identifying the group as the Falls Brook Rangers, Yankeetuladi.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 4, 202610:12 pm

Nana Banana

Oh the moments 21st-Century Kids are deprived of. There is something oh-so nostalgic about Jell-O made with overripe bananas and a cup or two of real cane sugar. That’s what Nana prepares in the Featured Image, which my father would have taken. Date is unknown, but sometime in 1972 or `73 is my guess.

We sure ate a lot of Jell-O growing up in the 1970s. Eater book review “‘Joys of Jell-O,’ There’s Nothing You Can’t Do with Colored Gelatin” claims that at the height of the jiggly dessert’s popularity, 1968, the average American household consumed 16 boxes a year. You should also read: “How the class history of Jell-O came full circle“—Marketplace”.

Photo by Joe WilcoxFeb 3, 20269:38 pm

Across the Snow

Two years ago, my sister Nanette and I discussed traveling to Maine to visit our father, whose health appeared to be declining. We made the trip, and visited with him February 17-18. He died on April 16, 2024.

As I explained yesterday, the Old Man left to me a treasure-trove of photographic slides, most of which he presumably had shot. They’re all mixed up, which makes sorting through them kind of a memorial journey—no, an adventure! The current batch is so far from 1973 and ’74, and I have seen so few.