Musings, Annoyances and Rants

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Went to Cambria last weekend. It was something of an impulse.

 

I was invited to a production of High School Musical. OK, it would NOT have been my first choice, but I know the costumer. So, I promised I'd be there. Because I never like to put a large number of miles on my car (a 10-year-old Mazda Protege with less than 80,000 miles - every time I take it into the dealership for service, the Service Manager tells me he has at least 10 people who would love to buy my car.)

 

All right, I'm like everyone else. Trade me a car for car, and I'll love you forever. I want a new car, but I don't want a car note. (See the problem)

 

So, in keeping with my personal tradition, I rented a car. Actually, made a reservation with Enterprise here in my neighborhood. As with all good things, something always goes wrong. This time I thought I had everything in hand. I selected a reservation time for 2-1/2 hours before I needed to leave. Would you believe they managed to screw that up? Apparently, only a handful - a small handful - of people work on Saturdays. This seems to be especially true on the Saturday I need a car. Needless to say, I had to get a neighbor to take me to the office that promises to "pick you up". This would have worked if I lived in their parking lot. Unfortunately, - no, make that fortunately, I don't.

 

I arrived at the office only to discover that they were still very very busy. I might add that no one told me I was suppose to put my name on a list for attention. By the time the young woman behind the desk realized her mistake, it was apparent that "I was not happy." Anyway, I finally got her attention. After completing the paperwork, while apologizing, she walked me to the lot behind the office, pick up the car she said was waiting. At the last minute, she offered me an upgrade . . . . A Tahoe. I had to explain that I don't drive trucks. If she paid close attention, she would see that I wanted a car. Next, she was walking me toward a Pontiac when I saw . . . TADA . . . and asked, "Who gets the convertible?"

 

I was looking at a silver Ford Mustang convertible. "You want it?" "How much is it?" "I'll give it to you for the same price." "Yes, I'd like to have the Ford."

 

And there I was, driving down the highway, top down, Breathe, by Soul Food, coming from the CD player. Life is good.

 

Let's hear it for impulse.

 

The production was great. I publically admitted that I would have never seen that particular production had it not been for a promise to a friend. However, I'm glad I went. Other than the fact the music does make you bounce in your seat, I learned something. If we could figure out how to harness the youthful energy I saw that afternoon, we would have one of the best and cleanest sources of energy in the world. There would be no need to raise energy prices.

 

All right, now I have a car, a convertible, and a whole day (Sunday) ahead with no real commitments. Whoo-hoo!! I heard the highway calling. At 9:00 A.M. Sunday, I was on the highway, headed north toward Cambria, my favorite place in all of California. (I allow for the state limit because I might eventually find another place that I love as much, but it's really hard to imagine at this moment.)

 

I had lunch at Robins (http://www.robinsrestaurant.com/), my favorite restaurant in Cambria. I stopped in to say hello to Terry (or Teri, I keep forgetting to ask) the owner of the Burton Inn. (If you're looking for a quite, but friend place to get away,  check out this website: http://www.burtoninn.com/ . Anyway, this is my place for relaxing.

 

I also visited my favorite winery (http://www.harmonycellars.com/). They have won so many awards, they rotate them on the wall behind the tasting counter.

 

Jeez, I just realized this is looking like a product placement paradise. No, that's not my intent. These are just the places that I enjoy.

 

Anyway, along the way, I took a few photographs. Yes, I'm still learning my cameras.

 

Nothing really exciting happened, but it was a wonderful weekend. I'm only sorry that (1) it was so short and (2) I had to return the car. OK, I know both of those were true and inevitable, but that doesn't change anything. I always return ready to face new challanges. Well, small new challanges. It seems wrong to ruin a good feeling with reality. Oh, such is the way.

 

So, now I've had two full days of my own reality and I'm ready for another weekend. Maybe without the rental, but in the long run, that doesn't really matter. Weekeneds are special, even in an older car. (Its old and dirty, but at least its paid for - doesn't get much better than that.)

 

 

 

Heaven help me, I have a new toy. I bought an Olympus Evolt 500 DSLR.

I had a little digital Canon – and I do mean ‘little’. The thing is about the size of my phone. There was nothing wrong with that camera. In fact, I love some of the photos that I took, but in a time before digital, I had an Olympus OM-1. During that time, I carried that camera everywhere I went – and I went some interesting places. 

I was, at one time, stage manager and occasional lighting manage for a modern dance company in Detroit. It was a fascinating time. The dancers were young and unbelievably enthusiastic. And they were all there for the photographing. Because I was always with my camera, they paid no attention to me. Add to that, the fact that the Olympus has the quietest shutter of its day; they rarely knew when I actually took a shot.

 I actually used an SLR for the first time while attending a dance conference in Minneapolis, Minnesota. A friend of mine had become fascinated with photography, purchased a camera and enrolled in a college course on photography. This had nothing to do with his major, but that’s another story.

 Somehow (I really don’t remember how it happened), I traded the use of my car for the period I would be gone for the use of his camera for the same length of time. I returned four days later with nine rolls of film.

 I was hooked!

 Shortly thereafter, my friend invited me to attend one of his photography classes. Later I discovered that there was an ulterior motive. My friend had taken a photograph of me while I was crocheting. (Remember the part about the quiet shutter?) I knew nothing about it until he showed to finished product in 16x20 glory.

 Ok, the problem? Friend presented the photograph of me to his instructor as completion of an assignment. His instructor loved the image. It was somewhat dramatic. I was seated at the end of a couch that had no arms, in front a lamp that was the only illumination in the room. Everything else was black.

 As I said, the instructor loved the image but he insisted that he had been printed backwards. That was the reason I was invited to class. I was there to prove that I was left-handed, but did everything just as a right-handed person. The only difference was I used a different hand.

 The class was interesting, although I was a little troubled by the images of one of the students. For me, it was hard to sit through class examination of, and comment on, four shots of what seemed to me to be the same bush. Not only did it appear to be the same vegetation, the bush was dead. Or, at the very least, it had dropped its leaves.

 There was another student whose muse led him to photograph sleeping derelicts. Thank God the photographs were in black-and-white.

 Anyway, two things came out of that visit. After learning that I was (A) a graduate of the university and (B) really interested in photography, the instruction invited me to take his class in the upcoming quarter. I really wanted to take the class, but I couldn’t afford the graduate fees.

 After a moment, the instructor the instructor invited me to sit in on the class.

I couldn’t refuse. It wasn't going to cost me a cent.

I was treated as a class member in the next quarter. He even took to the photography lab and introduced me to the attendants with an explanation – the truth. So, from that day forward, everyone who worked in the lab knew me and knew my special circumstances. They even took messages for me because, as I Iearned to develop and print my photographs, I could, and often did, stay in the lab for hours.

 To see one of the images I shot appear in the developing solution was always something of an exercise in magic. By the way, never, never, ever take a photograph of a blond, very pale child at high noon. (That’s a story for a later time.)

 One day, I had placed one of my photographs on a drying rack in the main room, outside of the darkroom. It was the photograph of the blond, very pale child at high noon that had taken me hours to tease into a photograph. I had returned to the darkroom to work on a photograph of sax player that I had taken at a concert in a local park. The image had to be worked and it was driving me mad. In the midst of questioning why I didn’t choose some other way to beat myself over the head.

 At that moment I heard a male voice express an interest in the photograph of the child. When he asked the name of the photographer, both of the attendants began what I like to think of as diversionary tactics. By any name, it worked.

 It seems that the voice I heard belonged to another photography instructor. It would have been a little difficult to explain why I was given access to the university photography lab and I wasn’t a student.

 For me, it was an exciting time.

 Oops, I just looked at the clock. I have got to go to bed and I’ve haven’t got to the new toy. I have to give you the rest of the story later. I’m trying to develop a real schedule.

 Pleasant dreams.

 

 

I am old enough to remember the test tube baby and the furor that advance caused in the press. There have been other advances that have been announced with less and less critical press. We were amazed at the medical skill that allowed physicians to reattach various portions of the human anatomy that humans managed to maul, mangle, and amputate. Children who have fingers reattached after playing with the lawn mower, adults who have hands reattached after having somehow managed to get the extremity caught in equipment secretly designed to removed these appendages.

After the pacemaker, we even felt hope at the idea of an artificial heart. By the way, the man who invented the artificial heart also invented the artificial kidney dialysis machine. Come on, that will come in handy the next time you’re on Jeopardy.     

We have finally accepted transplants of the lung, heart, kidney, various portions of the eyes and various pieces of skin. Ok, I’m fine with that, but today I read something that really makes me scratch my head.

Physicians are now planning to transplant a womb. Not just a womb, but lacking sufficient living donors, they are planning to transplant a womb from a cadaver.

Let’s look at established cost. For a liver transplant, the approximate cost for the first 3 – 6 months is $6,777.50. After approximately five months, the cost is $3645.50.

Therefore, the cost for a liver transplant is $60,000 to $90,000. And a heart transplant costs $75,000 to $125,000.

Now this leads to the next question. How much is one willing to pay for a womb? (I’m not going to address the question of a used womb. I see no fine definition of the plans, going forward, but I have some questions.

How much is one expected to pay for a used womb”? Do we know whether or not the ‘cadaver’ previously bore a child? If so, is there a price adjustment? Is there a discount based on the number of times it was used?  Such as: if the cadaver, before it got dead, bore three children, does that womb cost less than a womb that is virtually new (no children)?

Now only that, the womb, which promises the possibility of pregnancy, can only be used one time. Once the pregnancy is completed – I think that’s called ‘birth’ – the womb is to be removed. Does the patient have to add the cost of removal to the entire procedure?

If the womb doesn’t work, is it possible to have another transplant? We could continue this for many such operations until a child is produced. Here, we are excluding costs.

Ok, let’s say we get passed all of the other questions. What do you say to the child when he/she starts to ask where they came from? A Used Stork?

By the time I finished reading the article, I had another question: If this works, could a man be the next subject for this procedure?

OMG!!! How would you like to explain that one to the little one?