Categories
Places

At the car wash

My favorite place is not at home in front of the computer, or out on some trail somewhere, taking photos. It’s not in any city or town, in the country, or along the water, though you get close with the latter. I am in my car, but being in my car doesn’t make it my favorite place. And the place loses its magic if someone else is with me.

My favorite place is the car wash. In the middle of the car wash to be exact. I love the car wash. But before you start with, “Lady, you need a life”, give me an ear, an eye, and a sec of your time.

The excitement of the car wash starts when I move my car on to the rail and put it in neutral; I have lost all decision making power at this point except which wash I want. Do I want the wash with the pink, yellow, and blue foam, or just the pink and yellow? Do I want that clear liquid rinse they say is a wax, but how can it be when it isn’t waxy? Does my underbelly need washing? I don’t know, is my underbelly dirty?

After this decision, though, I am free from any further need for action as soon as the car starts moving forward until I respond to the bright green DRIVE light at the end.

I am isolated in the car wash. The radio is off to prevent interference with the wash sensors, and the cellphone doesn’t work through all the equipment. The wash is too short to start any task, no matter how small or trivial. If it was a bit longer, I’d feel guilty for the ‘wasted’ time, and probably whip out a notebook or some such thing, in order to do something useful. But the wash is over before this activity can be made worthwhile; so I sit and do absolutely nothing.

Nothing except watch the two young people scrub my front and back bumper and windshields to remove the corpses of tiny little creatures who zigged when they should have zagged. After that is the water spray, and I am moved to hum a note or two from “Singing in the Rain” during this event. The excitement begins to build within, anticipating what’s to follow.

First comes the big soapy strips that move back and forth across the car and take off the initial layer of dirt. They remind me of great dark blue tongues, bigger than a cat’s, even bigger than Mick Jagger’s –reaching out and licking across the glass and the metal, the tips lingering on the warm metal at the end. Following these is another shot of water, for the initial rinse, but it’s nothing to get excited about; mere foreplay made more mundane by what’s to come.

The car moves past tubes set into the wall and bright white, pink, yellow, and blue foam squirts out all over the car; pulsing to some internal beat; swirling together into a purple color that slowly drips down the sides of the windows; softly teasing small bubbles, sparkling in the light, glide past me as I look out. Always bright white, pink, yellow, and blue. Never all white, or all pink. I imagine a study was made in the past and the car wash people discovered that people respond better to different colored foam. I know I do – it wouldn’t be magical if the bubbles were all white.

But the moment doesn’t end when the foam ejection finishes. No, next comes the lighter blue yarn like threads that spin around very fast, along the the sides and top; following the contour of the car in a passionate but surprisingly gentle grasp. They start in front of my car and part ever so reluctantly as the car moves slowly forward, never losing the grip they have on the sides as they glide compellingly towards the back. At the end, they give a saucy little flip to the rear, a pat of appreciation and familiarity in passing.

Of course, once the blue threads are finished, the fun part is almost over and the excitement begins to wane. The car is rinsed with one clear water rinse and then another, followed by the wax, and though it’s pleasant, it doesn’t tingle or give one a thrill. Still, there are those fun little fans at the end, moving up and down and across the car, chasing water droplets across the hood and the windshield. A final fun and piquant moment before the green light comes on and I’m booted out.

What’s best about the car wash is that all during this experience, I don’t have to think about what tasks need finished, or what improvements need to be made in my life; who I have pleased or disappointed or let down. I don’t have to read the opinions of this wit or another, alternately cheered and depressed, calmed and angered. I don’t have to hear the bad news on the radio, or listen to even sadder news on the phone. I am slipped out of time.

Categories
Photography Places

A day at the park

I decided to hold off on Ozark trips until next week when the weather will hopefully be a little clearer. I also wasn’t up for a 4+ car ride, having done too many of these lately. Instead, yesterday I spent time at the Sculpture Park, playing around with my new camera.

I feel remarkably free with the D70, and had a great deal of enjoyment ‘experimenting’ with different angles and lighting and color and views. The fall colors still aren’t very advanced in St. Louis, but I managed to pick up some. And a few self-portraits, as well as other odds and ends.

“Portrait of Author I”

“Now these are big balls”

“Possibility”

“Golden Leaves”

I particularly liked this one, and I don’t know why. I think it was the shallow clear water reflecting the sky and trees above the creek, and forming an overlay among the rocks. And if you look close, I swear there are little people’s faces reflected in the rocks.

Did I happen to mention that I have long legs?

“Portrait of Author II”

Categories
outdoors Photography Places

A day in the park

I decided to hold off on Ozark trips until next week when the weather will hopefully be a little clearer. I also wasn’t up for a 4+ car ride, having done too many of these lately. Instead, yesterday I spent time at the Sculpture Park, playing around with my new camera.

I feel remarkably free with the D70, and had a great deal of enjoyment ‘experimenting’ with different angles and lighting and color and views. The fall colors still aren’t very advanced in St. Louis, but I managed to pick up some. And a few self-portraits, as well as other odds and ends.

“Portrait of Author I”

“Now those are big balls”

“Possibility”

“Golden Leaves”

I particularly liked this one, and I don’t know why. I think it was the shallow clear water reflecting the sky and trees above the creek, and forming an overlay among the rocks. And if you look close, I swear there are little people’s faces reflected in the rocks.

Did I happen to mention that I have long legs?

“Portrait of Author II”

Categories
outdoors People Photography Places

Fighting Failure

All indications say that the fall colors this year will be muted compared to last year. I can see this already when I go out for a walk — too many leaves just dying without that final burst of color, falling to the ground as damp, dark shapeless lumps. But it’s still a bit early in the season for Missouri, so I have hopes.

I thought the monarch butterflies might be out and visited Shaw today to get butterfly pictures, but most of the flowers had already started to fade and the butterflies mostly gone. However, I was exceptionally lucky to have spotted some of the brilliantly colored prairie gentian. Or at least, I think it’s the prairie gentian. Whatever it is, it’s a lovely, delicate, beautifully colored flower–a rara avis in the plant world.

Though I could find no butterflies, there were caterpillars out and about, and I had to keep a sharp eye out when driving to not run over any. When I was walking around the lake, I saw one fine, fat fellow walking down the exact center of the road — not from side to side, like others I’d seen; right down the middle, as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

He was crawling fast, too, and I had a hard time getting his photo without too much motion blur in the background. But then, motion blur with a caterpillar works, don’t you think? Like a cosmic giggle.

I left my fair butterfly-to-be and tried the prairie near the visitor center in hopes of spotting one monarch, but the most I saw were bees, more bees, and some other odds and ends of flowers on their last legs. I was extremely pleased to see that I’ve lost most of my phobia of bees and can now walk among them without fear; a few years back, I’d have run screaming from the area. But I’ve been bitten by so many things this year, a bee sting would have all the familiarity of an old friend who says painful things for your own good.

(For instance, this last week I received two identical bites, one on my upper back, right in the middle; the other under my bra on my right side. Not ticks, because the little bite marks are too big. Who knows what got me this time, it’s becoming a running joke in my home, “Eh, I’m off to feed the critters, again.” My roommate estimates that I’ve become an important part of the Missouri ecosystem. It’s reassuring to know that, no matter what else, one is always good enough for the bugs.)

When faced with the nothingness of the butterfly garden filled with bees, I was reminded of my enthusiasm with existentialism lately and my wonderful new discovery that Jean-Paul Sartre wanted to write a cookbook. Yes, indeed, he was the ultimate foodie, I kid you not. Following is an entry in his diary, which provides a recipe for tuna casserole ala void:

October 10

I find myself trying ever more radical interpretations of traditional dishes, in an effort to somehow express the void I feel so acutely. Today I tried this recipe:

Tuna Casserole

Ingredients: 1 large casserole dish

Place the casserole dish in a cold oven. Place a chair facing the oven and sit in it forever. Think about how hungry you are. When night falls, do not turn on the light.

While a void is expressed in this recipe, I am struck by its inapplicability to the bourgeois lifestyle. How can the eater recognize that the food denied him is a tuna casserole and not some other dish? I am becoming more and more frustrated.

When you are an artist, how frustrating, indeed, to deal with those who lack the discernment to see that the emptiness that surrounds them is a tuna casserole; they persist in smelling goulash.

Back from the bees to the road again and my friend, the caterpillar, and it’s onward march down the exact center of the road. Moved by what, I don’t know–probably visions of tuna casserole–I put my foot in front the caterpillar, curious as to what it would do when faced with an obstacle.

It stopped dead and touched my shoe carefully, as if trying to figure out what it was. It started to crawl to the right, stopped, then crawled a little to the left. Finally, it climbed onto my shoe.

It climbed a little way forward and encountered the ridge where my sole meets the upper, and stopped again. Eventually, it followed the ridge around the shoe to the other side, but rather than get off, it just kept following the ridge, round and round my shoe. If I had not grown tired and sad for the little bug, it would probably still be circling my shoe now, on my foot under the table as I type these words.

Instead, I walked to the side of the road and among the the tall grasses, stamped on the ground with my shoe, gently, until the caterpillar fell off into the plants. It happily went on its way, I imagine to find the prairie gentian to eat.

One final entry from the Sartre cookbook:

October 25

I have been forced to abandon the project of producing an entire cookbook. Rather, I now seek a single recipe which will, by itself, embody the plight of man in a world ruled by an unfeeling God, as well as providing the eater with at least one ingredient from each of the four basic food groups. To this end, I purchased six hundred pounds of foodstuffs from the corner grocery and locked myself in the kitchen, refusing to admit anyone. After several weeks of work, I produced a recipe calling for two eggs, half a cup of flour, four tons of beef, and a leek. While this is a start, I am afraid I still have much work ahead.

Categories
Critters Places

Sound washing around you

My broadband is out this morning and I came down to Panera Bread (St. Louis Bread Company) for a latte and a small loaf of asagia cheese bread. I’m finding it pleasant to catch up on my weblog reading and email, sipping good coffee from a large, white china mug, and nibbling at my excellent treat. More, I’m enjoying the noise around me as I type away. I miss this by working at home–not the direct interaction with people, which is nice in its own right but is a different thing; the background sounds of people chatting, washing around you like a gentle river.

Yesterday, I spent several hours happily working on the CSS for a couple of different sites, discovering that I really enjoy tweaking and fixing other people’s pages more than my own. So many hours in fact that I was late to get out for my evening walk and had to rush down to the park in the twilight. When I got there, the last people were leaving, carrying flashlights to light their way. It wasn’t so dark that you couldn’t see the path but I cut my walk short to just the one path, and only one lap.

The nice thing about walking in the dark is that all the energy of your mind that’s normally directed to your eyes can get re-directed to your ears and you’re treated to a symphany of night sounds you just don’t hear when the lights are on. Various chirps and breeks and clicks, not to mention rustles of sound in the leaves and the bushes. An occasional something falls down, probably seeds or loose branches. I would never walk at night in the woods on uneven ground, but you’re okay in a park near the city. At least, this park, in this part of the city.

Except for the webs. In the dark you can’t see a newly spun web, and there’s few things worse than walking into a web. I brushed convulsively about me to make sure I had picked up no spiders and hastened my steps as if to get that much further from what is probably a teeny, tiny arachnid.

“Ewww, ewww, ewww, ewww!”

The late night forest sound of a woman running into a spider web in the dark.

Headed back to my car past the pop machines I stopped suddenly when I spotted a large racoon in front of me, it’s back to me as it snooped around looking for dropped food. It reached the end of the machines and turned back, spotting me as it turned. Its reaction was hilarious, as it tensed up and the fur around its neck fluffed out and its eyes popped. If a cartoon bubble had appeared out of nowhere above its heads with the word, “Eeeek!” in it, I wouldn’t have been a surprised. I shouldn’t have laughed, human laughter can be a frightening thing to an animal, but couldn’t help myself it was that funny looking. Scared the poor thing away.

This morning I was going to write about a couple of articles I found on the CBS memos and Iraq, the Missouri voters, and ‘man speak’, but there’s something about sipping a latte in a white china mug, listening to the murmer of happy, active voices around me, all against a background of soft jazz that just makes you want to write about something experiential.

No wonder poets spend so much time in cafes.