Still Life with Camera

Weezie and I had a nice walk this morning in the fog and mist. The geese were leaving Lake Aldo Leopold in small groups and heading for the stubble of the cornfield for a snack. The picture below is in color not black and white although it's really hard to tell. Just that kind of day. We're moving in a few weeks so I tried to get some last pictures of our house and the general atmosphere of this community which I'm going to miss very much. Living in the Midwest encourages you to develop a palate for very subtle coloration. A friend of mine from the Bahamas who arrived here for the first time in the winter thought that some awful plague had killed all the vegetation. On the other hand when I used to travel to Puerto Rico, I had the opposite reaction: everything seemed too gaudy...but not for very long. There are a million shades of brown, russet, taupe, yellow, green that you would never notice if they weren't the main event. We walk by a couple of small lakes on th...

There's an underground tunnel system at the University of Illinois for when it's really cold and nasty outside. The building I work in is connected to the Pharmacy School, which is connected to the UIC Medical Center,which is connected to......... You get the picture. I work in the basement and walk these tunnels several times a day. Until I got the camera, I didn't really notice how artful they really are.

I wish I'd had my camera this morning. It was 43 degrees with no wind. Not exactly tropical but very pleasant for November in Chicago. Getting onto the train, I saw a woman with a heavy parka with fur-lined hood, long pants and warm boots (I couldn't tell if she was wearing long underwear). And then I saw a woman in the ticket line at Union Station who was wearing not much more than tattoos and a shawl. Go figure.

We moved out of The City a few years ago to a community that used to be a sleepy little vacation hamlet with ticky tacky lake cottages , bait shops and antique stores but has been transformed into a bedroom suburb over the past 10 years or so. Living in the city was a bittersweet experience. I loved being close to Devon Avenue where you can eat your way through waves of emigration as you travel east to west from Lake Michigan. Thai, Vietnamese, Indian, Pakistani(on Saturdays areas of Devon become a mini New Delhi when people from neighboring states arrive to get hard-to-find ingredients), Jamaican, kosher fish shops, Russian, Polish, halal meat shops, a Croatian Cultural Center, all interspersed with Mexican bodegas. We bought cinnamon, peppercorns, cardomom, turmeric, garam masala, red pepper flakes, cumin seed, mustard seed in various colors, red lentils, green lentils, brown lentils, lentils, lentils, lentils and rice in bulk for really low prices. We'd duck into one of the ...

The hock injections seemed to solve Navi's hock issues. Hooray! So cross your fingers the effect is lasting. I do notice now that he doesn't give me as much trouble when I lift his right hind to pick his hoof. He was probably trying to tell me the whole time that it was bothering him and I wasn't picking up on the signals. But like the child who's not quite as easy as some, his newest issue is his spookiness. He's super sensitive to almost anything new, but sounds in particular seem to bother him. So, that little patch of sunlight that wasn't on the arena wall the last time we rode by is SCARY! Sarah Brightman belts out a high note as we ride by the speaker, OHMIGOD! He's been pretty revved up ever since I got him in June, but it seems to be getting worse rather than better. We all have theories, of course. Maybe it's the cold - we don't think he's ever spent a winter where it's as cold as it is in Northern Illinois. Maybe his grain has t...

Remember that song? "How much is that doggie in the window/ the one with the wag-ge-ly tail." Every time I heard it when I was a kid, I went and bugged my mom about getting a puppy. It didn't work, though. My mother grew up on a farm and cats and dogs were working animals to her. An animal in the house? No way, so we never had any pets. (Except for the goldfish that came to an unfortunate demise when my 8-year-old sister put saran wrap over the bowl to make sure the fish wouldn't jump out when we were away.)

Fall is definitely here. I forget on an annual basis how much rain we get in September and October so I'm always unprepared. Navaroan and the other horses at the barn have to wait their turn for a turnout spot that's not too muddy. That and the cooler temperatures makes for some pretty fresh ponies. A couple of weeks ago, Navaroan seemed to be tripping over his hind legs an awful lot, but I thought it was because his feet had gotten so long. He gets reshod every 6 weeks but he could really use it every 4-5, if I could afford it. Last week I had a dream that something was wrong with his hind end and the next day my trainer called and said he was lame. The vet couldn't come until Monday, so she did flexion tests and hock xrays and then thought she really needed to make sure his suspensory ligaments weren't involved. She came back yesterday and did some blocks. The good news is that it really is "just" his hocks, both sides. She says he's a 2 on the 0-5 l...

I'm on the train every day before 7. It's only the 4th stop so there's still lots of room. The cars with the orange seats are older. The newer cars have blue seats and larger windows. People are very particular about where they sit. It's a lot like church, everyone wants their "assigned" seat and if you're new and upset the natural order of things, people may pace by you a couple of times and give you dirty or bewildered looks. You're in my seat. Where am I supposed to sit?? I'm on the train for 75 - 90 minutes before we arrive at Chicago Union Station. People read, knit, meditate, watch movies on their laptops, talk on their cellphones (not quietly), sleep, zone out... And then there's the bus.

I ordered a new camera online last week from Wolf Camera. It was because I had been spending time reading and oohing and ahing over blog spots like 7MSN and Shutter Sisters and Dog Photographer Erin Vey , and many more, who tell stories with gorgeous photos and words. What an inspiration! And then I ran into various photo challenges - like 9 photos every day for a week, or a photo a day for a year. Just thinking about taking photos on a regular basis started me noticing the little details that were overfamiliar and therefore invisible parts of my daily life. All of a sudden the autumn leaves brought down by the wind and rain were sidewalk art. Union station was not just a huge building to be rushed through to catch the 5:25, but a collection of beautiful architectural details. I will use this blog to track the renewed attentiveness I hope to gain by viewing part of my life as a series of pictures. Hopefully along the way I'll also get better at taking pictures, too. So here we go....