Flirtatious: "Can I interest you in a sunrise walk along the river?"
Real Mood: Curious!
Prediction: A crime will occur along an L.A. Basin river bed every single day of 2006.
Well, I think I've effectively dried out my brain. I take a little "photo jaunt" along the San Gabriel River east of Los Angeles. And I get a lot of help and stimulus from family and friends. .
Peggy and I zip off to California for my mother-in-law's birthday. We spend time with Esther, my sister-in-law Nancy, and my step daughter Rhonda. Nancy always comes up with a Rhinoceros souvenier for us. This time it's a "Rhino and Hippo Calendar." Esther is really getting around great after some surgery. Rhonda is so full of intellectual energy she happily exhausts me. And the woman remembers everything. You need to have your story straight if you're going to have a discussion involving detail.
I also get to have lunch with my old media buddy Casey Bauer. She is about to have a baby boy. Casey, once a CBS producer in L.A, and a bureau chief for CNN in Denver, is now a free lance producer working mostly for the Food Channel.
We discuss and share our mutual reaction to people saying, "Don't you miss it?"
For both of us, sitting back in a easy chair watching someone else report the details of a snow storm? That my friends is a nostalgia killer.
You know the older you get the smaller the world gets? I remember that one of my students once dated Casey's brother. They aren't an item anymore, but Casey keeps track of Leigh. Now I know where Leigh is and what she's doing.
And here I am having coffee in Burbank with a former student inching her way into TV production. Tasha Orr is working with the production company that's producing that cable channel Motorcycle reality show. Something about CHOPPERS? (You know for at least one demographic that's all about false teeth?) She says just you wait. They'll soon be producing a reality show that will "knock the socks" off all other reality shows. I think I'm sworn to secrecy for the moment.
Somehow I remain connected to students attached in some way to "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy," "Martha Stewart," "Wife Swap," that "ESPN become a sportscaster" series, and I think a couple more of the reality genre shows.
"WHERE DID I GO WRONG?"
I also develop a friendly relationship with Tasha's dog, Tom or Jack? Now I'm in trouble.
So I'm not done yet. I get a last minute chance to have coffee with my elder sister, Theda and my niece Dale. Instead of coffee we drive out to a new Orange County University built exclusively for an Asian community we've yet to identify.
I Get a great shot of a bird on campus that's either an Egret or Blue Heron. I'm looking it up now.
Dale is a Paralegal with this firm I think is about the same size and makeup of the one employing Erin Brockovich. And If I'm not mistaken I think Erin's company is located in the same area. I only bring that up cause I think Dale is brighter and much better lookin' than Erin, AND Julia Roberts. (Can you be sued for Assault and Flattery?)
I mention to Peggy on the phone that I'm in need of a shot of testosterone. Maybe I should hook up with some guys and go watch "Ultimate Fighting."
She suggests we all make our own choices.
Well I did spend some quality time with Tasha's dog, Jack or Tom or what ever his dog tag reads?
But, here's my point and I hope you missed it. It will have greater impact.
The frame above is my week's highlight. How did that shirt get up there in the tree? So many questions! So many stories from fantasy to fiction to faction to news it inspires. It's where art and intellect connect. What a stimulus! And it's where good journalism begins. What on earth happened? Don't you want to find out?
Speaking of finding out? It's a Grey Heron...and it's picture number 8 if you want to see it slightly out of focus. Didn't get a good picture of Nancy.
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