My daughter is vacating the room she was renting—and, of course, duty fell on me to haul her there to collect the remaining possessions and transport them to her storage unit. She owns too much stuff (my polite phrasing), and I insisted that lugging everything to the car was her responsibility.
Naturally, for me, that meant much sitting inside or walking around our hatchback. When they issue the award for being slowest packer and mover, she could win.
Typically, homeless hang out on the sidewalks along the walls outside Sprouts supermarket, located at the intersection of Georgia and Howard in San Diego neighborhood University Heights. As such I wouldn’t have seen—or been able to take the Featured Image of—the tree-hanging lucky charm, whether he be leprechaun or Santa’s elf (you tell me which). But yesterday, the space was uncharacteristically unoccupied.
What a difference 24 hours makes. This afternoon, when I strolled by: One gent lay sleeping, wrapped in a brown blanket. Someone else huddled under a makeshift habitat, of which bicycle hubs were part of the structure. Another fellow crumpled cans collected from recycle bins; he worked from garbage bags carried in, and hanging from, a shopping cart. I couldn’t see the tree, or what was on it.
Why are you looking at a couple of lonely leaves? Because their grapevine is something of an obsession; I am enthralled by the growing location—on a grassy patch between sidewalk and street somewhere in my San Diego neighborhood of University Heights.
Last year, I chronicled the grapes’ progression from green to mixed color to richly ripe. Walking by today, I saw that the branches had been clipped, as they are every autumn, but something remained—making me intriguingly sentimental enough to stop with Leica Q2 and capture the Featured Image. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/2.8, ISO 100, 1/1250 sec, 28mm; 11:45 a.m. PST.
One of my sisters is avid about golf. My interest almost reaches enthusiasm for root canals. Ah, the things siblings don’t share in common, eh? She was already on my mind, because of Thanksgiving Day, when I passed by a set of discarded clubs this morning; more so after I chuckled over them, thinking: How appropriate. Perhaps the previous owner and I share similar sentiments about the, ah, sport. Yuh. Let’s turn the TV channel to curling—another fine slow-moving competition.
Knowing absolutely nothing about golf, or the accruements necessary to play, maybe I missed a magnanimous moment of opportunity—like the yard sale buyer who snags a rare painting or Leica camera that turns out to be worth tens of thousands of dollars—even millions. What if the clubs are a rare set, put out by another non-golfer who is emptying the apartment of some aged relative recently passed away? Sometimes that which looks old and crusty is valuable. Are these clubs? I presume no more than any others in similar condition. But why not speculate?
Early afternoon, Oct. 23, 2022, I came across two shorthairs that quite literally played cat and mouse in the yard where once lived Pee-Pee. Among the first several shots, the black looks away. The Featured Image is the last portrait taken, after the beastie turned my way and settled down to await what you can’t see: Nutmeg, who is supremely camouflaged behind the growth along the wall.
I used iPhone 13 Pro for this one, which vitals are: f/2.8, ISO 32, 1/214 sec, 77mm; 12:10 p.m. PDT. Nickname: Jet.
Around lunchtime today, when walking home from Von’s supermarket with cheap canned cat food, I got a hankering for a Sonic burger. We rarely eat out and the fast-food place was one of my father-in-law’s favorites. I thought to simultaneously see how the take-out experience has changed and to venture down memory lane. Surprise doesn’t enough express what I found or—stated differently—didn’t.
I stepped inside the restaurant to see chairs stacked on tables in fashion to cordon off most of the dining room. The menu screens were dark, as was the overall ambience. I could enter because roller-skating servers (e.g. carhops) exit through the same doors to deliver meals to parked vehicles. I vamoosed.
On Halloween 2016, Pee-Pee joined the series as the fifteenth profile. I shot her portrait five days earlier. Fast-forward six years, on Oct. 23, 2022, I came upon not one, but two, feisty felines stalk-playing […]
Yesterday’s military-like incursion into my neighborhood ended after about 11 hours, when the last of three suspects surrendered to police. I missed the action, as he was arrested around the same time that I shot my last photo of the day, 7:40 p.m. PST. I was behind the perimeter at Meade and Mississippi, when the standoff ended on the next block, Louisiana, and closer to El Cajon Blvd.
But when walking over to that part of the neighborhood this morning, I hadn’t seen a news story, nor could anticipate what to expect. All the cop cars, portable toilets, and other vehicles—including the armored BearCat—were gone. The area was so peaceful and quiet, one wouldn’t guess what had happened the previous day.
A few hours ago, while my wife shopped at Aldi, a helicopter started circling above the area where were two drug deaths last week. I could hear commands from a loudspeaker instructing someone to put down the gun and come outside. That couldn’t be good.
After she returned, Annie and I walked over to that part of the neighborhood, where we met massive police presence. Louisiana was blocked at Meade along with the perpendicular alleys parallel to El Cajon Blvd; at Mississippi and Texas.
As my wife and I crossed El Cajon Blvd at Texas Street, today, we heard an ambulance approaching from behind. Cars pulled over, and I startled, realizing some came uncomfortably close to us—in the crosswalk! The emergency vehicle turned into the McDonald’s parking lot, which was before us. Sound of another siren brought my eyes to a firetruck coming from the other direction.
I decided to stop and mark the moment, from afar. The Featured Image comes from Leica Q2. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 100, 1/320 sec, 28m; 9:38 a.m. PST.
Around the turn of the last century, Bentley Ostrich Farm relocated to my neighborhood but closed in 1929. The feathers were less in demand as a luxury, and economic crisis began its grip on the nation. Many, but by no means all, of the birds were relocated to San Diego Zoo.
One of the fixtures—or monuments to the past—is this ornamental ostrich located outside a home on Mission Cliff Drive. I walked over there today after seeing a sign that Cupcake—one of the “Cats of University Heights“—disappeared on Nov. 8, 2022. Coyote sightings are way up, and the Norwegian Forest Cat’s owners live nearby along one of the canyons. I hope that Cupcake simply is trapped somewhere.
Two days ago, while walking up Madison into North Park on my way to the pet store in Normal Heights, I came across a mom and her little tyke. I presumed that she let him work his little legs while she pushed his ride. But passing, and saying hello, I saw that the stroller is a two-seater—one facing her and the other forward—with a second, younger child sleeping soundly before her. Ahhh.
Beforehand, I got a single shot—the Featured Image—using Leica Q2 Monochrom. Vitals, aperture manually set: f/5.6, ISO 200, 1/640 sec, 28mm; 3:07 p.m. PST.