Tag: photos

Legacy Writing 365:38


Mary Jane and Papa

I simply can’t do a better job of talking about Miss Mary Jane than I did several years ago in this post. This is my father’s father and stepmother, and this photo was taken the year my brother was born. Now my father being youngest, and marrying “late” (he was already out of his twenties–ancient!), it had been a while since there were grandBABIES on his side of the family. As Jane-Jane was a spinster until she became my widowed grandfather’s second wife, she got to enjoy with Papa the fun part of small children, i.e., you get to spoil then return them. They didn’t spoil us with things; they spoiled us with affection. Jane-Jane was just crazy about my brother, and I can remember times when all she wanted in the world was to kiss his cheek, but he was such a freaking boy and would run away from her. She kept right on adoring him, though.

I’ve heard that in old photographs, everyone looks so solemn because they had to be motionless for what seemed like forever for the photographer to get a good shot. And honestly, these two could not look more misleadingly grim. I’m not saying they were people who usually wore big smiles. Life was serious business when you endured world wars, cold wars, stock market crashes, rural poverty, the Depression, and a late arrival to indoor plumbing. But I remember Jane-Jane and Papa as good and loving people. They were the only grandparents I got to know, and I still have a few stories to tell about them, just not nearly as many as I wish I could have.

If you have living grandparents, you are so fortunate. Cherish them and let them know you love them. Most of all, give them a chance to tell you their stories. We should all endure as more than names on stones.

And if you have children and grandchildren, we don’t always appreciate or take the time to hear those stories. Write them down. Make videos or tapes. Someday your children and grandchildren may be wiser and will want to hear them.

Legacy Writing 365:37


Here’s a wall of the rock house I loved so much that a part of me still lives there in my memory. Apparently a jonquil has pushed its way into spring and requires its chance at posterity. In the corner is the shadow of someone, most certainly my mother, taking the photo.

There’s still enough of a chill, even on that sunny day, for my father to be wearing a blue/gray sweater (that matches his socks, which seem crazy light for his dark pants) over his shirt and tie and under his wool coat. He is roughly the age in this photo that I am now (you know, thirty-five a few times). I have no idea what My Age Him and This Age Me would talk about. His world and my world are so different.

People say I look like my mother. But I tell you this. Even though the distorted angle of this photo makes his head look larger than it was, he did have long ears, as did his father, and my ears hark right back to that genetic variant. So whatever we might talk about, we’d be sure to HEAR each other.

Runway Monday All Stars: Clothes Off Your Back


On the most recent episode of Lifetime’s Project Runway All Stars, the All Stars were sent to the streets to find someone whose clothes inspired them. They had to interact with their muses, persuading them to hand over the clothes they were wearing to become at least fifty percent of new looks by the designers.

I sent my original Model Muse Summer out to find clothing that inspired her. Because inspiration is what happens when I’m busy doing other things.

Summer was wearing a design I created just for her: the Eiffel Tower dress. Her shoes and bag are from Mattel. She also took a Mattel T-shirt with her to trade for the article of clothing she would bring back to me. Off she went to the park to begin scoping out potential fashion inspiration.


Too dressy.


Too casual.


Just right.


Summer explained what she needed; the muse began removing his shirt to appreciative glances from the crowd.


Summer took possession of the shirt that would become my new design.


After saying goodbye, she headed to my sewing room, where I was delighted with her find.


I turned the man’s shirt into a sassy little skirt for my Monster High model Ghoulia. I kept the hemline of the shirt for the skirt and gathered it at the waist to give it fullness. Ghoulia’s boots and stockings are from Mattel.


I used a bold pink fabric for the shirt to match the stitching on the skirt. I altered the old collar and made it the collar on Ghoulia’s shirt. Finally, I added a single black button to fasten the shirt.


Ghoulia loves showing off her new clothes.


See you next time on the runway!

The pink shirt fabric was a gift from Marika. Also, I confirmed that last week’s fabric was a gift from Kathy S. Thanks as always for helping to build my fabric stash!

This season’s previous looks:
Week 4: Good Taste Tastes Good
Week 3: Patterning for Piggy
Week 2: A Night at the Opera
Week 1: Unconventional Challenge

Legacy Writing 365:36


I rarely get out to see my friend Princess Patti in Small Paradise, but I think of her darn near all the time. When my skeptical self met her many years ago (during the time this photo was taken), she taught me how to open my mind to new possibilities. Through her, I learned what people were talking about when they spoke of “new age” and “metaphysics.” I stopped dismissing out of hand things that had not been or could not be proven and accepted that not knowing the reason or science of things doesn’t mean there is no science or reason; we’ve barely begun to comprehend all there is to know and explore. Every day, I try to find something to be inquisitive or excited about in a way I’ve seen Pat be so often. She inspires me.

Like hearts, minds should stay open. I resist dogma. Once you begin making the rules, you lose the magic. When you begin building the walls, you’re erecting more than one kind of barrier. I’m not a joiner; groups generally repel rather than attract me; and I don’t always play well with others.

If there’s no “I’ in “team,” why am I there?

(Cue Timmy saying, “You’re such an Aries.”)

I was talking recently about a piece of watermelon tourmaline I acquired at a gem and mineral show I went to with Pat several years ago. It’s one of my favorite crystals, and I brought it out earlier and cleaned it. I’ve photographed it here with two pieces of banded fluorite (and a baby aspirin to give you an idea of how small the three crystals are). Just sitting here with these tonight has made me happy. Stones and crystals have that effect on me–in that way, they are like Princess Patti.

Legacy Writing 365:35

My nephew Daniel had this photo taken by his other half- Aimee, and she was generous enough to send it to me and say I could share it here.

Daniel said the reason he folded himself into this car is because the happy dog reminded him of their recently adopted Lamar. Aimee added, “This is what adopted dogs and their families feel like when the dogs get ‘sprung’ from shelters and rescues!”

Aimee knows, because here are their three rescues:


Millie.


Max.


Lamar.

I agree with Aimee. Rescue dogs and their forever families do experience a unique joy. But as far as Daniel getting into the little car, I think a part of him is still this youngster:


Daniel with his mom, Terri.


Daniel with his grandmother, Dorothy.

My happy family is made up of rescued dogs and great nephews and nieces. =)

Legacy Writing 365:34

What I’d like to show you from my first trip to New York City in February 1998 are all the fantastic photos I took of Tim and Timmy and James. The photos from that night eating pizza at Timmy’s and talking about a little project we’d just started that would become the novel It Had to Be You in 2001. Or that amazing night on top of the Empire State Building with Tim and Michael and the great shots I got of them.

But I can’t show you those because I lost the new Canon I’d bought in Manhattan in the back of a cab.

So what I have are photos of views in Central Park and Battery Park and looking out my hotel window shot with my older Canon AE-1 that I hadn’t taken out of my hotel room before my last day in Manhattan because I’d bought that smaller, easier-to-tuck-in-my-coat-pocket camera. Also too-easy-to-slip-OUT-of-my-coat-pocket camera.

Here’s one photo I took from my hotel room looking out at Madison Square Garden.

If I enlarge a detail of it, you can see how a little bit of back-home Texas was with me in New York.


Go Rockets! (I think the Knicks won that game, though.)

I also have plenty of memories. Like James walking my feet off. The Blue Dog Gallery which took us by surprise. Great restaurants. My first time to hail a cab by myself. My first solo subway ride. Seeing places I knew about from decades of TV and movies: Times Square, Union Square, Soho, Greenwich Village, Hell’s Kitchen, Chelsea. How friendly everyone was, which wasn’t what I’d been led to expect in New York. And how women on the housekeeping staff would linger in my room and talk to me because they were intrigued by items I had on my dresser (incense, crystals, rosebuds–my little “get centered” shrine).

Also, my watch died my first day in the city. I could have stepped inside one of many places and had the battery replaced. But Macy’s was just next door, and I grew up thinking of Macy’s and New York as a couple. So Timmy went shopping at Macy’s with me. The watch he picked out is still my main watch all these years later.

The crystal is kind of banged up and the battery’s dead. Should I just buy a new watch? 😉

Legacy Writing 365:32


I am seven.
I’m about to have a really traumatic school year.
But it’s summer and I have no idea.
I remember that swimming suit.
I’m wearing some kind of shirt over the swimming suit.
That’s not my family’s car.
But I think I remember whose car it is.
We were a neighborhood of women and children whose husbands and fathers were deployed overseas.


Debby is twelve.
I think she looks like a baby Mick Jagger.
She’s probably saying, “Hey, you, get off of my bench.”
But that’s okay.
I’ll pay her back later.
If it wasn’t this picnic by a lake, it was another picnic when:
I woke up in the middle of the night…
Sat up…
And threw up watermelon all over her.

I don’t remember it.
But she swears it’s true.

Legacy Writing 365:31

When we were in high school, Lynne’s mother bought her an awesome Canon 35mm SLR. She still has that camera and still takes great shots with it when she wants to use film. It was because of Lynne that I developed an interest in photography. She helped me pick out my first Canon and we used to spend a lot of time shooting together. But that was years later. Before she was my go-to person for film and camera advice, she was my go-to photographer, especially for black and white.

I was talking to Jim (my writing partner, because there are two Jims who comment on this blog) last night and asked him why he made a crack about me showing my teeth in a previous post of adolescent me. Apparently, he’s under the impression that I was always an angsty, solemn teenager who didn’t smile.

Here’s one of my favorite photos, taken by Lynne, probably when I was fifteen or sixteen, that shows I COULD smile. What makes it a favorite is it really captures how I dressed for about two years. Jeans, dark-colored T-shirt, man’s chambray or button-down dress shirt over it all. It’s only because of this photo that I realized why a character I’ve been writing dresses that way. She’s got just that little bit of teenage me.


I wish I could see that big belt buckle better.

A birthday and a visitor

Today is Rexford G. Lambert’s birthday. That link will take you to his birthday photo.

In honor of the occasion, there was a special visitor to The Compound.


This is the closest thing to a smile I could get out of Hanley. She had a lot on her mind–especially the coffee date that was being delayed by my camera-wielding self.


Here, she’s intent on checking out the beaded embellishments her manny/tailor has added to her jean jacket. There are beads spelling out her name, “Upside down,” she explained.


Hello Kitty socks and pink-sequined shoes. As usual, to quote a favorite movie, Hanley is “my style guru.”

As they were leaving, I think I heard her call out, “Goodbye!” Or it could have been, “You’re fired!” Same/same.