Becoming 60 - Part III

Through the end of the year - I’m writing one post a month about my thoughts on becoming 60. The theme for this month is about pleasure. Articulating the aspects of my life that I find pleasurable gives me added opportunity to savor how plentiful they are - which is also a way of being thankful (Isn’t that the overall theme for November with the Thanksgiving holiday coming up?).

As I started thinking about the pleasures of my days I realized that most of them are not complicated or expensive. Some of them must be sought or require effort on my part…some just happen and all I need to do is notice. Here are 5 pleasures I’m acknowledging today - November 1, 2013.

Seeing beautiful images of nature - in photographs, through a window, in paintings. Being able to capture the moment with a photograph of my own, reinforces the image in my memory. I have become a much more visual person in the past few years. I think it is caused by spending time collecting historical botanical prints (electronically) and then taking 1000s of photographs.

Sharing life experiences via conversation. I am an introvert so initial meeting of someone new is never easy for me….but I forge ahead because I enjoy the conversations that come afterwards and the possibility of new friends.

Accepting family. Everyone in my family assumes we are together for the long haul and, to make that assumption possible, accepts family members as they are. There are family members that have known me my whole life. I’ll probably outlive them. There are the ones born after me that I have known their whole life and expect that they may very well outlive me. It is the cycle of family. We don’t choose each other…but we accept. What a pleasure it is to know that there is always at least one group of the world where I will always belong!

Shopping for groceries. I usually do not like shopping; shopping for the sake of shopping is not something I do; grocery shopping is the only ‘shopping therapy’ I can imagine as a pleasure. I make sure I get to the store when it is not crowded so I can move at my own pace - which is usually brisk unless I am researching something new and taking time to read labels. I’ve added quite a few new items over the past few years: quinoa, kale, hummus, almond milk, and frozen blueberries. It takes creativity to buy the right amount of food to last a week and not buy the same things all the time.

Reading a good book. Once I admitted to being an introvert - most people should have guessed that this one would be on my list of pleasures. It is easier now that it used to be to keep good books near at hand. There are so many free books online (Internet Archive or my library) and paperbackswap  has filled up my ‘to read’ space (and I’m still working down my wish list).

Earlier posts:

Part I theme: The future looks bright

Part II theme: an interlude to choose the best for the rest of my life

Brookside Gardens - October 2013

Brookside Gardens was full of fall last weekend - colorful foliage and the display of mums in the conservatory. I was a little disappointed that they did not have pumpkins and gourds on display as they have in the last few years - but it was interesting to see the preparations for the lights in the gardens that begin at Thanksgiving.

Indoors there is always the draw of lush tropical foliage in the conservatory and the literate frog sculpture in the visitor center.

 Outdoors the colors of fall abound - with some of the trees completely changed (like the dogwood) and some still mostly green (like the ginkgo).

And take a look at both directions from the entrance bridge of the conservatory parking lot:

Of course there was more...so the rest of my photo picks from my October walk around Brookside Gardens is in the slideshow below.

Zooming - October 2013

The ‘zooming’ post for the month has become one of my favorite posts to create. I enjoy selecting the images and getting them clipped perfectly…the arranging them in the post. My picks from my October photographs are below.

September 2013 Zoom

August 2013 Zoom (garden)

Dead Horse Point State Park, Utah - Oct. 2013

Dead Horse Point State Park is south west of Moab UT. The park is on a mesa that looks down into canyons and a gooseneck of the Colorado River. The potash evaporation ponds in the canyon are a vivid blue.

There are some easy hikes that cross cairn marked areas smoothed rock with potholes of water; it had rained recently enough for tadpoles to be swimming in the deepest ones.

The mountains in the distance held snow.

And everywhere the layers of exposed rock marked Earth’s time just as tree rings mark the much shorter duration of the lives of plants.

We were glad we got to the park early since, with the National Parks still closed that day, this state park was the destination of the day for many vacationers.

Enjoy the slide show of Dead Horse Point State Park sights!

Vacation Sunrises…and a Sunset

Catching images of sunrises and sunsets is a typical ‘vacation’ activity. Our recent trip to Utah (and transit of Colorado) was no exception. I was up well before dawn every morning - transitioning to Mountain Time but keeping to my regular morning routine which usually starts between 5:30 and 6 AM; this time of year that means that I am ready for photography before dawn.

The first morning there was a thin bank of clouds to catch the morning color of the dawn in Monticello UT.

The second morning there was snow on the ground and I used the early morning light to capture my favorite tree on the golf course below.

A few days later the clouds gathered at sunset to capture the last color of the day.

And then the sunrise on the last day of vacation from the hotel near the Denver International Airport - full of celebration for the new day and a wonderful vacation.

Around our (Maryland) Yard in October 2013

Our Maryland fall has been muted this year. Most of the trees have not achieved the brilliant colors of years past; the few that do are flashes of brilliance that provide a splash of color for a few day and then drop all their leaves to the ground. I find myself appreciating the play of light through oak leaves this year and the splotches of color on maple leaves that fill a tree that looks ‘green’ from a distance.

The front flower bed is mostly gone to seed. I haven’t seen the birds easting the seeds of the blazing stars but the bare rib of some of the seed plums is evidence that the feast is not going totally unnoticed. We’ve had freezing temperatures for the past few mornings but there is still a dahlia blooming - resting on the sidewalk that probably retains enough heat to keep it warm.

The tulip poplars are losing their leaves and their seeds without becoming the blaze of yellow. They tower over our yard and their leaves wave in the wind….and whirl away.

Last but not least - the onion seeds are scattering as the wind shakes them like at rattle out of their cases. I hope some of them come up next spring as new plants.

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 26, 2013

The items below are ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

Genome Digest - A summary from The Scientist of recent research findings. I like these summaries both for their specific content and the ‘overview’ comparison they sometimes stimulate. Did you know that chimpanzees/bonobos have 2.9 billion base pairs; a cyanobacteria has 4.7 million base pairs; cucumber has 245 million base pairs?

Did You Forget to Have Fun? - How long has it been since you actually did whatever your answer is to “If you had all the time in the world, and weren’t always working, what would you do for fun?”

Driverless Cars Are Further Away Than You Think - Read the comments as well as the story. Time will tell as always. This is a technology that I am really looking forward to so I hope this naysayer is wrong.

The Gorgeous Fjordlands of West Norway - Beautiful wild places

How Are Open Access Publishing and Massive Open Online Courses Disrupting the Academic Community? - So far - is appears that MOOCs have been more disruptive than OA.

Mountain Lion Facts - Did you know that baby mountain lions have spots and blue eyes?

Ancient tattoos may have been used as medicine - Tattoos on Otzi the Iceman

Winners of the Landscape Photographer of the Year 2013 - More feasts for the eyes…UK landscapes.

Why Abraham Lincoln Loved Infographics - A map that showed the density of slavery was well used by Lincoln (it ‘bore the marks of much service’). This article also highlights William Playfair’s role in the development of data visualization; he was the inventor of pie charts and bar graphs in his “Commercial and Political Atlas which he published in 1786.

Improving Weather Forecasts - Forecast accuracy…and how the forecast is presented and interpreted. There’s always room for improvement.

Ten Days of Little Celebrations - October 2013

Over a year ago I posted about finding something to celebrate each day. It’s an easy thing for me to do and the habit of writing it down reminds me to be grateful for these and a myriad of other things in my life. This month has been full of ‘little celebrations;’ here are my top 10 for October 2013.

Everything fit into the suitcases. Once the packing is done….the realization that everything needed for a vacation actually fit into the suitcases is worth a celebration.

Utah. Actually this celebration lasted for 8 days. Even though the national parks were closed there was still a lot to enjoy: the aspens in the Abejo Mountains, Edge of Cedars State Park, Monument Valley, Dead Horse Point State Park, Wilson’s Arch, La Sal Mountains, Needles Overlook and Valley of the Gods. Travel expands horizons - in more than just the physical sense - and provides a myriad of opportunities for celebration.

Home again. Much as I enjoy traveling, coming home is always savored.

Rainy day. I’m not sure why - but a rainy day that keeps be indoors after days away from home is just perfect. I celebrated with a good book and hot tea….while moving the loads of laundry from suitcases to baskets to washer to drier.

Caught up with Coursera courses. There were 4 courses that were ongoing while I was in Utah which meant there was a lot of lecture and resource review once I got back. I felt a real sense of accomplishment once I caught up - and celebrated with some dark chocolate.

Hot tea laced with apple cider. Some beverages seem to go with fall. Apple cider is one of them for me. It’s too sweet at full strength so I use it as sweetener for hot tea. It’s another way to celebrate the season.

Out and about. The fall is one of my favorite times to be out and about the local neighborhood. This year the trees seem to reach peak color and then drop their leaves very quickly. I celebrate when I see a tree full of yellows and reds - knowing the vision is a transitory one.

Vicarious celebration. My daughter achieved a milestone in graduate school. The celebration was hers….but I celebrated vicariously.

Cranberry orange relish. This is another fall favorite. I use the recipe from Wegmans with some modification: two oranges instead of one and stevia instead of sugar.

Finding a dental discount plan. My dental insurance expired…but my dentist suggested a discount plan available from the dentalplans.com site....and I had a good checkup too!

Monument Valley - Part II

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park includes a visitor center and then a bumpy loop road that is best down with a higher clearance vehicle. The road meanders through rock formations that have been named: Western Mitten Butte, Eastern Mitten Butte, Elephant Butte, Camel Butte, Three Sisters, Totem Pole. The mind tends to leap to familiar forms when looking at the rocks against the sky….and we want to name what we are seeing. I always wonder if naming a rock formation after a familiar form reduces our perception of the details of the formation just as a stereotype about a group of people reduces our perception of the specifics about an individual. So - I decided to just include an unlabeled slideshow from Monument Valley in this post.

Monument Valley - Part I

Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park is barely on the Arizona side of the Arizona-Utah boarder and the day trip from Monticello UT to Monument Valley was so eventful that I am doing two posts about it. Today the focus is on the road trip down and back; it took just under 2 hours each way. Blanding is the only town of any size along the way; the visitor center there has a Navajo loom set up in the museum area. Mexican Hat is at the place where the road crosses the San Juan River. There are two distinctive rock formations along with way: Mexican Hat just north of Mexican Hat and Navajo Twins near Bluff. I’ve included the images I’ve captured of them in the slide show below.

3 Free eBooks - October 2013

It’s time again for the monthly post about eBooks that are freely available on the Internet. The three below are my favorites for October 2013.

Mollhausen, Balduin. Reisen in die Felsengebirge Nord-Amerikas Bd. 1. Leipzig: H. Constenoble. 1861. Available from the Internet Archive here. The images of the desert southwest that were published in 1861 are full of plants that are (mostly) realistically portrayed. 

 Macbeth-Evans Glass Company. Shades and Globes. Pittsburgh: Bartlett-Orr Press. 1912. Available from the Internet Archive here. This catalog from the early 1900s has some appealing ‘shades and globes’ for light fixtures that would not look out of place in a home today. I like the iridescent glass and the pattern of the one I clipped for this post.

Wittmack, L. Gartenflora Bd. 42. Berlin: Verlag von Paul Parey. 1893. Available from Internet Archive here. I am still savoring the volumes of Gartenflora ---- going through a few more each month. The chrysanthemum was one of my favorite images from October.

Rock Art and Sculpture at Edge of Cedars State Park

The rock art and sculpture at Edge of Cedars State Park is everywhere one looks. The image with two types of sandal prints (shown at the left) is used on the cover of a book about rock art produced in a book from the 1980s - Spirit Windows: Native America Rock Art of Southeastern Utah. The prints from sandals with patterns on the bottom were the elite or priests; the plain prints were from ordinary people.

The walls and stairwells of the museum have rock art reproductions. Some were similar to the pictographs we had seen at Newspaper Rock (see images 13-15 in the previous post). I always look for spirals. Here are some images from the museum.

Outside the museum there are modern sculptures that take on forms from rock art. My favorite single form was the mountain goat but I spent a lot of time looking at the complex sculpture that made streaks of sunlight through pictograph-like perforations: spirals, tracks, hunters.

And what about a figure coming of a ladder (from a kiva?).

Some look vaguely like people --- but raise questions too. Why does this one only have four fingers on his hands?

And is the one below representing a person at all? If it is not a person - what does it represent? It’s a reminder that culture impacts how we see the world. We take what we recognize from the rock art and make assumptions about the rest.

Clay Pots at Edge of Cedars State Park

This is one of the additional postings I promised in my previous post about Edge of Cedars State Park in Blanding, Utah --- and the focus is the extensive collection clay pots from the Four Corners area that are displayed in this museum. It feels similar to the pot room in the Arizona State Museum in Tucson and I indulged my ‘pots as comfort’ linkage by taking lots of pictures at this state park.

My favorite pot was a bowl - white on the outside and painted inside with black geometric designs. The irregularity of its shape is what made it special. It looked almost unused so maybe the potter from long ago thought the accident of its shape had made it special too.

Many times I am attracted to the colors - the deep oranges or black on white. Others I look more at the geometric designs. This time I also noticed the texture of the pots. The little cup with the waves of texture and burn marks from its firing (image 7 in the slide show below was my next favorite).

Gleanings of the Week Ending October 19, 2013

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles and websites I found this past week. Click on the light green text to look at the article.

1,200 Whimsical Stone Statues at Buddhist Temple in Kyoto - Small, mostly smiling statues capped with green moss. They were donated in 1981 to the temple but have a timeless quality. My favorite image is the sixth. The most prominent figure looks happy and calm; the one next to him looks worried about something.

Lost (and found) in Lahore: a photoessay - From the TED blog…images of Lahore, Pakistan from Khurram Siddiqi. If you tried to capture where you live in a photoessay, what would you include?

The Human Bionic Project - A collection of current state-of-the-art links about the interaction between human bodies and machines. The interface shows a human image with pink circles to indicate places where there is more information. There is a slider to move from outside the body to muscles, skeleton, organs, etc. This was one of the reference materials for a Neuroethics course I am enjoying on Coursera….part of the discussion about the changing definition of disability, illness, and disease.

Strength in Numbers: 5 Amazing Animal Swarms - Red crabs, free-tailed bats, desert locusts, monarch butterflies, and starling murmurations

The Uncanny Places on Earth That Look Like Alien Worlds - Sometimes they look alien from afar….and sometimes from within.

The Human Plutonium Injection Experiments - A report published in Los Alamos Science in 1995 about the efforts to understand plutonium’s effects on health during the Manhattan Project….what was known…and what was not…what was done to determine exposure limits. The project’s mission was foremost but the leadership did not ignore the health issue in the frenzy to get an atomic bomb built and tested. The article is another reference from the Neuroethics class.

Map of San Francisco, Stripped of all the Urbanism - The terrain without bridges, cable cars, and housing.

Where Are Migratory Monarchs This Fall? - There have been fewer monarchs in our area of Maryland. There are fewer milkweeds too.

Butternut Squash Smoothie - I have been enjoying apple cider in my smoothies…so I am going to try without orange juice or other sweetener. Somehow the taste of butternut squash and apple cider appeals to me!

More Than 500 Million People Might Face Increasing Water Scarcity - I am probably sensitized to the issue because I am familiar with Tucson’s challenges today. It would not take much change in rainfall, continued concentration of toxins in the water, and/or increased population to result in shortages of good quality water.

Edge of Cedars State Park - Utah

The Edge of Cedars State Park is located in Blanding, Utah (south of Moab in the Four Corners region). It’s one of the few AAA ‘gems’ that is not a National Park --- so it was open in early October when I was in Utah. It is a place worth the stop even if the parks are open and I’ve lined up 4 posts about it. I’ve planned posts on pots, rock art, and sculpture from the museum for upcoming days; today are some of my favorite things about the park that don’t fit in those categories.

One of my favorite things from the museum - beautiful and unusual - is a necklace made from insect legs. The necklace was found in a stash of illegally collected artifacts but there was a bracelet found (and the location well documented) that looked very similar. Were they ever a set?

Behind the museum are a restored 1,000 year old kiva and hummocks of the unexcavated ruins of the rest of the village inhabited by ancestors of Puebloan peoples from AD 825-1125. We braved the cold breeze the day we were there to walk around the interpretive loop (and down into the kiva) - no regrets!

The materials used by ancient peoples (aside from clay which will be the topic of a later post) were highlighted in the exhibits and some of them surprised me. The yucca fibers look like blonde hair. The broken pot that still holds the mesh of beads and rope someone long ago stuffed into it reminds us how pottery was used for storage of just about everything. And turkey feathers were used to construct blankets! Juniper bark was twisted to make mats. Macaw feathers were used to make a sash; the top part of the sash is squirrel fur (from a species found in northern Arizona/southern Utah) so the sash may have been made in the same area rather than made somewhere else and traded into the area; there are macaw skeletons found in some ruins. There was a set of stone knives with handles; the dry climate of the area preserves many items that would have decayed in other climates.

Enjoy the slide show from the Edge of Cedars State Park.

Leaves of October 2013

Usually we are in full autumn color by about this time of October. This year some trees have not turned very much yet, although they have started dropping leaves.  Some branches of our oak are reddish brown in the sunlight while a lot of green leaves are still on the tree.

The same goes for the sycamore.

The maple had not dropped very many leaves at all although there is a brilliantly colored leaf among the green.

Elsewhere in our neighborhood individual trees have already dropped most of their leaves. We will not have the usual colorful swath up and down our street with the trees on each side turning in synchrony. Perhaps our very dry August is to blame. I’m still holding out hope that the maple I see from my office window (the one that is still green) is going to be full of yellow and red by the end of the month!

Monticello, Utah

We opted to stay in a vacation rental in Monticello, UT rather than Moab on our recent vacation. Monticello is higher (and cooler) than Moab and is further south. My husband had prioritized ‘Monument Valley’ as a destination for one of our days and the location of Monticello made it an easier day trip.

The small town turned out to be scenic too. The second morning, a dusting of snow became visible as the sun came up. It flocked the grass and provided a white backdrop to the fall foliage in the ‘rough’ of the golf course.

After the snow melted (it only lasted a few hours) - the green grass was visible again and the bright sunlight caused all the colors to glow.

Deer came to visit - seemingly used to people being near.

My eyes were drawn again and again to a tree that had lost its leaves already. The green of the golf course surrounded it - and I wondered if it was dead or just some tree that always lost its leaves early.

There were many birds around too - but only this one sat still long enough to be photographed.

Abajo Mountains and Newspaper Rock, Utah

Our trip to southeastern Utah coincided with the government shutdown - before the state managed to re-open the National Parks in the area with state funds. Consequently - my blog posts about the vacation will include sights from outside those parks. The drive west from Monticello UT through the Abajo mountains was quite scenic in the early days of October. There were swaths of aspen among the pine and scrubby oaks on the eastern side of the mountains….and colorful layers of rock in canyons seen from the western side. We turned around at the blockade at the Canyonlands National Park. Newspaper Rock - with images pecked into rock - was along our route back.

Sit back and enjoy the slide show of the mountain views - the large and small, the timeless and transient, the crystal clarity and hazy distances.

‘Stuff’ Project for October 2013

It is very satisfying to combine items that have been languishing as ‘stuff’ in my house for years into something useful. This month the project is a bag to hold ‘hand wash’ items when I put them into the washing machine (I never ‘hand wash’ any other way these days).

The items I combined were the zipper end of an old satin pillow case (it was something I thought I wanted over 20 years ago but quickly decided was too slick to actually use) and a piece of gauzy fabric that I’ve had for so long I don’t remember its origin. The whole project took less than 30 minutes because the zipper was already in place. 

On the Road in Colorado - October 2013

The ‘paper airplane’ art seen at the top of the escalators in the Denver International Airport (picture above) is always something I appreciate upon arrival. There were a lot of travelers when I arrived in early October…and returned a week later.

Our final destination was Utah so the images of Colorado were what we could capture along I-70 while enroute. Fortunately - driving from Denver to Grand Junction is scenic any time and particular this time of year  when there is the addition of fall call to the mix: the dark green of pines, the yellow of aspens, older fall colors for scrubby trees, a scattering of snow on the highest peaks, and bands of rock colors anywhere the vegetation has been swept away or never grows in the first place. I also included an apple tree (with fruit) that was growing at a rest stop and the sunrise on the morning we flew home - in the slide show.