Brad, my hero and big brother of the heart, used to have a baseball cap that I thought was hysterically funny when I was 8. It had two visors pointing in opposite directions and the printed words, "I'm their leader. Which way did they go?"
I'm scared; I'm sad, and I'm fiercely proud. He is fighting with everything he's got. I will never, ever be ready to say good bye, not even if we lived to be 99 and 102. And just when I think I might have to be ready, he surprises us all. Repeatedly.
I want him to lead me where he needs to go, because the truth is, he always has.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Bipolar
Some days the bipolarity of my job just absolutely blows my mind.
I started out today photographing and filming a $1 million historic Tudor home "with panoramic views of the Hudson River!" for the Real Estate section. The agent walked me and my cameras around the property, extolling the virtues of the inground heated swimming pool and adjacent cabana, the jacuzzi and steam shower, the two working fireplaces (one surrounded by vintage tile, naturally), the newly renovated kitchen with brand-new stainless steel appliances, multilevel terraces, a claw-footed bathub, original hardwood floors and mahogany beams, and the topper, a completely separate apartment for live-in help that can also stay vacant for occasional use as a guest suite.
Then my cell phone rang.
State troopers and local police are evicting a homeless woman from her temporary shelter behind a Park and Ride lot near the Thruway. (This is a trend we've been following.) She had left briefly to go to a nearby church for their free breakfast program, but the volunteer with the key to the church kitchen didn't show. She went back to her makeshift shelter to eat fistfuls of dry cereal and found two bulldozers getting ready to raze the home she made from a tent, a tarp, playwood and some old shipping pallets.
She called her social worker who promised to be there in 20 minutes, but never showed up. Then she called a friend (yes, she has a prepaid cell phone with minimal minutes. Judge if you must, but remember, by the grace of God go all of us...) who lives in his car. They loaded everything they could into the trunk and the backseat. She took everything she could grab to the home of a friend, an elderly woman she calls "Mom" who lives in Section 8 housing and never fully recovered from a broken hip.
People from her church offered to pay for a storage locker where she could lock up her belongings. She will sleep at her friend's house tonight, but tomorrow she's on her own. She doesn't want to go to a shelter because she hasn't done drugs in six months. She's afraid of falling off the wagon if she runs into her old crowd, whom she knows will be in the shelter.
She doesn't want to get help from the nearby organization started by and for homeless people, because the man in charge- who was homeless until recently- left her for another woman. She is broke, brokenhearted, and scared. She is getting by with the help of people from her church where she hopes to be baptized. At 2 p.m., she swore she'd never go back to her tent. By 5 p.m., she went back to retrieve a small ceramic statue of a squirrel she had left in a tree, because she couldn't bear to leave it behind.
In short, I drove from here to here.
I started out today photographing and filming a $1 million historic Tudor home "with panoramic views of the Hudson River!" for the Real Estate section. The agent walked me and my cameras around the property, extolling the virtues of the inground heated swimming pool and adjacent cabana, the jacuzzi and steam shower, the two working fireplaces (one surrounded by vintage tile, naturally), the newly renovated kitchen with brand-new stainless steel appliances, multilevel terraces, a claw-footed bathub, original hardwood floors and mahogany beams, and the topper, a completely separate apartment for live-in help that can also stay vacant for occasional use as a guest suite.
Then my cell phone rang.
State troopers and local police are evicting a homeless woman from her temporary shelter behind a Park and Ride lot near the Thruway. (This is a trend we've been following.) She had left briefly to go to a nearby church for their free breakfast program, but the volunteer with the key to the church kitchen didn't show. She went back to her makeshift shelter to eat fistfuls of dry cereal and found two bulldozers getting ready to raze the home she made from a tent, a tarp, playwood and some old shipping pallets.
She called her social worker who promised to be there in 20 minutes, but never showed up. Then she called a friend (yes, she has a prepaid cell phone with minimal minutes. Judge if you must, but remember, by the grace of God go all of us...) who lives in his car. They loaded everything they could into the trunk and the backseat. She took everything she could grab to the home of a friend, an elderly woman she calls "Mom" who lives in Section 8 housing and never fully recovered from a broken hip.
People from her church offered to pay for a storage locker where she could lock up her belongings. She will sleep at her friend's house tonight, but tomorrow she's on her own. She doesn't want to go to a shelter because she hasn't done drugs in six months. She's afraid of falling off the wagon if she runs into her old crowd, whom she knows will be in the shelter.
She doesn't want to get help from the nearby organization started by and for homeless people, because the man in charge- who was homeless until recently- left her for another woman. She is broke, brokenhearted, and scared. She is getting by with the help of people from her church where she hopes to be baptized. At 2 p.m., she swore she'd never go back to her tent. By 5 p.m., she went back to retrieve a small ceramic statue of a squirrel she had left in a tree, because she couldn't bear to leave it behind.
In short, I drove from here to here.
Monday, July 23, 2007
You Don't Know Jack (Well, maybe you do)
So I just finished up a grueling seven-day work week, one that involved shooting Harry Potter until 1 a.m. and starting again at 9 a.m. the next morning to photograph environmental volunteers removing parasitic vines from a state park. Yesterday, I was driving back to the office after shooting a house fire when I saw a little dog almost get creamed by an SUV on a blind curve. I was honking and waving my arms from inside my car, then hopped out and stopped traffic in both directions.
He was a pretty cute little thing, some sort of pug-inspired mixed breed. I called the phone number on his tags, which had been disconnected. His ID said his name was Jack. I knocked on a few doors. None of the neighbors recognized him, but one lady gave me a spare leash. As we were running out of clues and I was on a tight spot news deadline, I took him back to the office with me.
In the time it took me to cut together a 60-second movie of the fire scene and transmit ten photos, he chewed through the leash not once but TWICE after I tied the severed ends back together. When he pulled out of his collar without my noticing despite the fact that the retied leash was hooked around my wrist, I started to have a sneaking suspicion about how and why Jack was running amok in traffic.
His rabies tag said he had been inoculated at the nearby chapter of the SPCA, which on a Sunday night, was already closed. Jack came home with me for a sleepover. He and Bella did alright actually. They scurried through every room in the house, and she proceeded to assert her Alpha status in each and every one.
Bella; Wanna see the people bed? It's reallyreallyreally cool!
Jack: Yeahyeahyeahyeah!
(He was a hyperactive little thing).
Bella: Okay, but you can't get on it, okay? I can, though. I'm allowed. You aren't a'pposed to! I'm a lot taller now!
Jack: Whimper?
Bella: Wanna see *my* bed?
Jack: Yeah, yeah!
Bella: No, only *I* can sit in it. Well, me and the cat, but not you.
Me: (warningly) Bella... He's here one night. Can you share?
Jack: Cat? Cat! CAT!!!
Me: Oh, Jesus.
**********
Bella: Wanna play humans?
Jack: Okay!
Bella: Okay, now I'm the girl human, which means I get to tell you what to do and make you wear the leash and stuff. You can be the cat, okay?
Jack: That's not humans, that's- Um, what does the cat do?
Bella: He walks around screaming and staring at nothing all day.
Fred: (peeking around door, tail three times as wide as usual) Hey!
Bella: Jack pee-peed! He pee-peed and not outside in the business place!
Me: You know what? Time for separate walks and bed!
**********
In the morning, I took him to the same shelter where he had his rabies shots, knowing they could find his owners from the paperwork. There was a shelter employee and a guy from Animal Control taking care of forms behind the desk. They looked up and simultaneously said:
"JACK!"
Me: "You know this little guy?"
Animal Control Guy: "Dude, I just dropped you off at home again yesterday."
M: Really? I found him running along-
Us Simultaneously Again: B****town Road.
Me: Yeah!
Shelter Employee: Let me guess, in Pony Stoint?
Me: Yup. He almost had a close encounter with an SUV at the intersection with W@yne Avenue.
ACG: Yeah, he lives less than half a mile from there.
Me: Well, I called the number on his collar. It's disconnected, and I did knock on a few doors, but no one knew him.
SE: (petting Jack) Don't worry, you're not in trouble.
ACG: I'm just curious. When did you find him?
Me: Around 5/5:30 p.m. or so?
ACG: I dropped him off at 10 a.m.
Me: Do his people need, like, a fence or something?
ACG: He's pretty sneaky, actually.
Me: Yeah, I noticed that.
Weird little mutt. :)
If anything else, it's a good reminder to double-check your animal companions' ID tags. We realized about a month after we got rid of the landline that none of the old cell numbers nor the house # on Bella's tags were accurate anymore. Doh!
He was a pretty cute little thing, some sort of pug-inspired mixed breed. I called the phone number on his tags, which had been disconnected. His ID said his name was Jack. I knocked on a few doors. None of the neighbors recognized him, but one lady gave me a spare leash. As we were running out of clues and I was on a tight spot news deadline, I took him back to the office with me.
In the time it took me to cut together a 60-second movie of the fire scene and transmit ten photos, he chewed through the leash not once but TWICE after I tied the severed ends back together. When he pulled out of his collar without my noticing despite the fact that the retied leash was hooked around my wrist, I started to have a sneaking suspicion about how and why Jack was running amok in traffic.
His rabies tag said he had been inoculated at the nearby chapter of the SPCA, which on a Sunday night, was already closed. Jack came home with me for a sleepover. He and Bella did alright actually. They scurried through every room in the house, and she proceeded to assert her Alpha status in each and every one.
Bella; Wanna see the people bed? It's reallyreallyreally cool!
Jack: Yeahyeahyeahyeah!
(He was a hyperactive little thing).
Bella: Okay, but you can't get on it, okay? I can, though. I'm allowed. You aren't a'pposed to! I'm a lot taller now!
Jack: Whimper?
Bella: Wanna see *my* bed?
Jack: Yeah, yeah!
Bella: No, only *I* can sit in it. Well, me and the cat, but not you.
Me: (warningly) Bella... He's here one night. Can you share?
Jack: Cat? Cat! CAT!!!
Me: Oh, Jesus.
**********
Bella: Wanna play humans?
Jack: Okay!
Bella: Okay, now I'm the girl human, which means I get to tell you what to do and make you wear the leash and stuff. You can be the cat, okay?
Jack: That's not humans, that's- Um, what does the cat do?
Bella: He walks around screaming and staring at nothing all day.
Fred: (peeking around door, tail three times as wide as usual) Hey!
Bella: Jack pee-peed! He pee-peed and not outside in the business place!
Me: You know what? Time for separate walks and bed!
**********
In the morning, I took him to the same shelter where he had his rabies shots, knowing they could find his owners from the paperwork. There was a shelter employee and a guy from Animal Control taking care of forms behind the desk. They looked up and simultaneously said:
"JACK!"
Me: "You know this little guy?"
Animal Control Guy: "Dude, I just dropped you off at home again yesterday."
M: Really? I found him running along-
Us Simultaneously Again: B****town Road.
Me: Yeah!
Shelter Employee: Let me guess, in Pony Stoint?
Me: Yup. He almost had a close encounter with an SUV at the intersection with W@yne Avenue.
ACG: Yeah, he lives less than half a mile from there.
Me: Well, I called the number on his collar. It's disconnected, and I did knock on a few doors, but no one knew him.
SE: (petting Jack) Don't worry, you're not in trouble.
ACG: I'm just curious. When did you find him?
Me: Around 5/5:30 p.m. or so?
ACG: I dropped him off at 10 a.m.
Me: Do his people need, like, a fence or something?
ACG: He's pretty sneaky, actually.
Me: Yeah, I noticed that.
Weird little mutt. :)
If anything else, it's a good reminder to double-check your animal companions' ID tags. We realized about a month after we got rid of the landline that none of the old cell numbers nor the house # on Bella's tags were accurate anymore. Doh!
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Joel Needs Your Suggestions
Seattle and Pacific Northwest readers, please advise! Having decided he's done photographing the desert for a while, Joel is planning an 8-day nature photography trip in the last week of August.
I, on the other hand, will be leading my glamourous life here at home, walking the dog, placating the cat, evading the skunk and trying to make my Pulitzer Prize winning shot in the photo-rich splendor that is varsity high school football, cross-country and field hockey camp. Woo, Fall Sports Preview Section! Woo!
Anyway, Joel is considering shooting the following:
1.) Mount Ranier
2.) Mount St. Helens
3.) Hoh Rain Forest
4.) Coast at Mora, WA
5.) North Cascades National Park
6.) Mount Garibaldi in BC
NW Pacific folks, which of the above do you think would result in the most dramatic landscape photography? What is a Must See? What would you skip? Should he also be including, say, the San Juan Islands in there? Take it away!
I, on the other hand, will be leading my glamourous life here at home, walking the dog, placating the cat, evading the skunk and trying to make my Pulitzer Prize winning shot in the photo-rich splendor that is varsity high school football, cross-country and field hockey camp. Woo, Fall Sports Preview Section! Woo!
Anyway, Joel is considering shooting the following:
1.) Mount Ranier
2.) Mount St. Helens
3.) Hoh Rain Forest
4.) Coast at Mora, WA
5.) North Cascades National Park
6.) Mount Garibaldi in BC
NW Pacific folks, which of the above do you think would result in the most dramatic landscape photography? What is a Must See? What would you skip? Should he also be including, say, the San Juan Islands in there? Take it away!
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