Chapter 64 - Poker, Puzzles and Photos

I'm in a rut.

I'm stuck and I know the reason why...it's the blasted, bloody, bilious and baneful weather. It's winter and it just won't go away.

So, yeah, I'm in a rut. I stay inside and pass the days doing puzzles, watching that stupid show, Walking Dead, (thank you very much, Michelle!!) (and not in a nice, gosh this is good kind of way, either!!) doing crossword puzzles and, generally, moping about in a blue fugue, a stunned stupor. 

I'm in a rut.

But, thankfully, there is hope. The days are easing up and winter is finally beginning to relent a little and release its death grip on the weather.

One of the good things I've got going is the Dorchester House Saturday Night Poker Club and Finest Kind Chips & Dip Social.

A bunch of the folks at the Dorchester get together and play a rousing game of Poker, tell lies to each other, laugh a little, drink a little and eat a lot of chips. It works out pretty good.

One Saturday we decided to skip the game and go out to the newest restaurant in town for the heck of it. And we did. Pretty good meal but the company was much, much better.

Here Marv, Army Airborne, entrepreneur and terrible poker player.

Rob, Army MP and then MI. Has things he cannot talk about. But that doesn't stop him from talking about everything else.

Maybe the second best poker player...and by this I mean he can deal for himself and he actually knew a couple of the games we played.

Quick note, in this group I am, amazingly, the BEST poker player. I know!! It's hard to comprehend but there it is!!

John, Navy and the Coast Guard. Then he worked in State Parks. Probably the most intelligent one there but, seriously, rivals Marv for being a lousy poker player. Can't EVER leave the cards on the table while playing Texas Hold'Em or Seven-Card Stud. Never!!

And the Lovely Carol. Doesn't play but likes to listen to all the nonsense we spout and enjoys laughing along with everyone else. In fact, Carol and Laurel started the DHSNPCFKCDS. Laurel couldn't make it that night as she was in the hospital getting a tumor removed from her Brain Housing.

It was an enjoyable dinner and a break from the usual. Maybe some breaks from the usual aren't such a bad thing.

Kinda like climbing out of the rut.

Hahaha, how was that for a segue? Got the point across, right? Sometimes, y'know, you gotta shake things up a bit. Like with segues.

And this one is fun. I like to gently tweak other people's noses. Find their sore point and poke it so-to-speak. And Politics in today's America is a field ripe for the picking...or poking as it were.

Back when W was Prez, I bought a bobble-head of him to put the buzz on my kids. And it worked. But, back then, they could take the ribbing and it was all fun. I'm not so sure if I could do the same thing today without some raised voices.

Still, I couldn't resist when I saw this Trump bobble-head for sale.

I mean, c'mon, it's great, isn't it!?! Or maybe I should say it's, "YUGGGGGE!!"

Hahahahaha, I've got it on the mantle now. It should  be a good conversation starter.

Whadya think!?!

But, wait!! There's more!!

I couldn't resist and so I got this little extra treat.

Isn't it great!?! A Lego Trump. With a MAGA Hat. Putting a little salt on the wound.

Hahahahaha, WINNING!!!

Here is part of the rut. I've done a BUNCH of puzzles lately. Mind you, I still enjoy doing them but, good golly, I was doing them like one-a-day.

And, yeah, as I said, I enjoy doing them. I like the theme I've found...the flat style of days gone past. The nostalgia thing.

But I've been putting in waaaaaay too much time on puzzles to the exclusion of almost everything else.

I haven't found a good outlet so far this year but my interest in photography is UP again.

I was walking into the kitchen (to work on a puzzle) and saw this cup lit up by the afternoon light streaming through the kitchen window.

It was an interesting light arrangement and, you know, photography is simply painting with light. So I hustled back and got my camera.

I shot this over 20 times and got it down to two. I am getting marginally better at this self-editing thing. Not all the way there but better than I was.

Then, as much as I could, I played with it in iPhoto. I finally got it close to what I was seeing in my head.

This is #1.

And this is #2. 

Neither of them are award winners but they represent thought and design and intent and, for me, something more the ISIPIS kind of photography I usually do.

(ISIPIS = I See; I Point; I Shoot)

With these, at least, I paused and thought. And tried. Big difference.

Anyway, I am interested in creating with my eye and my camera. Or is the camera really my eye? An extension of my eye? Hmmmmm, heavy, Bro.

But I sorta liked what I was doing. I was thinking.

Ah, this weather. It has me down. I had thought I could take the long, dark, cold, damp winter days. I thought I'd just carry on.

I was wrong. It has gotten to me. Last winter it was difficult and it affected me. This year was just a repeat of last year. In every way except, maybe, it has been a bit longer.

But now, the weather appears to have finally rolled on over into spring. I hope so. I just checked and the next rain isn't predicted until May 3. The days are all in the 50s with two days where it is forecast they'll go into the 60s. Finally.

This was a typical morning scene. Gray, overcast, wet, dull, deadening.

But blue skies are on the rise. 

Hooah!!

Oh, and here's another puzzle. I told you I've done a bunch of them. A lot. But this one appealed to me because of the photography. I'd like to do a series on doors. 

Mysteries, barriers, statements, personalities, all kinds of things are found in doors; all kinds of statements, declarations. I'd like to do a series on them...travel and explore and find them.

Like this one. What a neat door. Time and utility are here. Service and function that morphed into a thing with beauty.

What a neat door. And the light used to paint it is just subtle enough to compliment what is already there. It is just nice, right!?!

But as much as I enjoyed the doors, there aren't the many to go around and so, as soon as that was done, I started in on nostalgia again.

And I follow my predictable pattern. Put them on the table and start turning them all face up. And while I do that, I identify the side pieces and set those apart.

My strategy is to block in the puzzle first by building the outer edges. Once I have that done then...

...I simply fill in the missing parts.

I am a simple person. I do what works for me.

And another bucolic scene. Well, at least it is rural in nature.

For no other reason than I had the camera, I had just taken pictures of a puzzle, and I snapped this picture. 

It shows my ennui. I just haven't had the energy nor the inclination to pick up things or keep the place neat and orderly.

Oh, argle-fargle. I haven't cared much about cleaning for a while now. Gotta get back on my cleaning schedule. Gotta.

I will.

Kind of a potpourri here. Kathy Huff, a high school friend was driving back from Bend when she snapped this picture. Well, not exactly this one...I took the liberty of punching up the color, slightly, and cropping it to what I felt was a better, more complimentary size. I took off a lot of green foreground and shaved some clouds off the top. I like the panoramic effect plus I like getting rid of the fluff so the viewer (me) can concentrate on what is important.

She told me it was better. I was glad as I didn't want to offend her with my meddling.

But it is pretty nice, eh? A Scene Along the Road. Hahaha, taking pictures while driving.

Hooah!!

I've been working (and I want to stress here how much I mean that. I've been pushing myself to break out of the doldrums and back into a routine. Not a rut but something beneficial, something that brings about positive results.) on eating better and getting some exercise.

And now that the weather is breaking I feel like I can get out and walk. But I'm tired of walking around the neighborhood. Been there; done that. Dozens of times.

So I'm trying to find myself again, work on my photography, entertain myself and exercise.

And that's how, on the semi-sunny afternoon a day or so ago, I found myself strolling along the side of the road south of Devils Lake.

For my Retirement Albums, I put in a Google map to show the relationship of my walk to the ocean and the lake. I mean, it's all here in a very small space.

And, because I had never considered it before, I noted where Don's place is. It's right on the edge of that big open space but his back yard is heavy forest with lots of ground vegetation.

I hadn't realized how close it was to the marsh and the road I was walking.

Hahaha, I am a simple soul.

I had parked on a dirt road at the east end of this road and was walking west. I wasn't on the road too long before I spotted this guy hunting alongside the road. And that is what he was doing, hunting.



He was pretty brassy too. The traffic didn't bother him one bit. He just kept focused on his job.

As I walked up towards him he kept edging further and further down the road. Eventually, he was even with the puddle and still, even when he was getting splashed, kept on hunting.

And he was successful, too. He caught this fish. That tells you how deep the water was and how close to the road it is.

A few shakes of the head and...

...it was gone.

Now the really gruesome thing is that this lovely looking gentle bird swallows some of its prey live. They are digested...alive. At least for a while they're alive.

And down it went. EZ-PZ.

And then he was back on the prowl.

When he spotted something, he would stretch out his neck and remain motionless.

And then he inched. His movement, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, bringing him closer and closer. 

A quick portrait of a born killer.

Hahaha, well, it's funny because it's true.

There were other birds out there as well. It was, bottom line, a fun time for me. 

And I enjoyed experimenting. I knew this shot would be uber-contrasty as I was shooting it. It would, because of the direction of the light and the time of the day, just be a bad picture. The challenge then, for me, was to accept that fact and try and work around it. And I did try. 

I reached the end of the road. The end where I planned on turning around. I took a walk up the Seit Creek Open Space where Jon had done his Eagle Project and was pleased to note that someone was making the effort to keep the path clear.

Then it was back to the open road.

And the semi-clear skies. Good golly but I do enjoy seeing some blue sky on a cool day. There really is something magical in being outside when the weather is cool (not cold) and the skies are blue.

But the real reason I looked up and took this picture was...

...the five turkey vultures flying in lazy circles in the sky above the road.

They are truly nasty little creatures. Ugly, dirty little scavengers. Even their lives are ugly. They hunt for dead animals and then eat them. Their heads are featherless so they can thrust them into the carcasses to eat without having the gunk stick to them.

But they were there. In the pictures they look almost noble. At a distance, I guess, almost everything looks good. (There's something deep in that statement. You figure it out.)

But let's get back to the Redwing Blackbirds. They were singing to each other and making a joyous noise.

And they were backlit and contrasty so....off to the iPhoto with you. I converted this one to Noir B&W. There wasn't much color, a little green from the moss on the branch, to drain out of the picture. It lends itself easily to being a B&W.

There he is!! There he is singing. Go ahead and google their song. It's unusual. But I got him letting loose with a tune.

I moved around a bit (thinking again, I am) to try and put the light in a better place for me to take his picture.

I got just this one where you can see a wee bit of the red on his otherwise black wing. Hahaha, someday I might even be a bonafide amateur photographer!! Someday!!

As I walked along the road I would stop just to look. It's really a different world just a few feet off the road. With a couple steps you'd be up past your knees in water. Whizzing by in your car you probably wouldn't be aware you're driving through a water feature.

As I was standing there this fellow glided silently out of the bushes and, eyeing me, paused. I got the impression he was checking to see if I had some food to toss to him.

When I didn't, he turned and swan up and away from me.

Yeah, it's a common mallard. A pervasive and invasive species, it is considered a species of least concern by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. In other words they aren't at all worried about them...they're like cockroaches.

And I didn't know this but the wild mallard is the ancestor of most domestic ducks.

Contrast again. So I pushed it to Noir. I like the dramatic effect it brings to the blue skies. There's a Redwing Blackbird there on the branch.

As I moved on down the road, I saw my old friend, the egret. He was across the road from me. He had simply flown off and landed on the same side of the road but down from me. And there he was.

Small note of interest...there's my KIA up ahead and parked on a dirt road just off the hardball.

I felt he was pretty brassy and already aware of me so I didn't dawdle like I had before and slowly walk up on him.

I just kept on walking and taking pictures of him from the other side of the road. And he pretty much ignored me.

I had passed him and was looking back at what he was doing. What I think happened was that he caught a large flying bug buzzing about his head with his beak. I didn't see his head bob down like it would have had to do if the bug were on the ground.

But I saw that he had a bug in his beak when I got this picture.

And, somehow, without losing the bug he maneuvered it up his beak towards his gullet.

And, poof, that bug was gone.

And the hunt continued.

Then, without warning, he took off and...

...circled to his left and then headed back up the road towards where I had first seen him.

Definitely had his territory staked out. His hunting ground where he was comfortable and, more importantly, well fed.

But as he was winging his way west, another egret, who had been further out in the wetlands, took off and headed in the same direction. This one landed further away from the road while the first one...

...landed on the road again. This time he was on the other side of the road. Still within his boundaries, his hunting ground.

I continued on towards my car pondering the vagaries of nature and piddling with my camera. I saw a barn and thought I'd try it in B&W. There are times when I actually shoot in B&W rather than wait until I can manipulate it with iPhoto.

I was trying some shots of the barn when I saw this heron flyings north just ahead of me. And I had the camera in the B&W mode.

I shot anyway. Hahahaha, be prepared. I wasn't and so you can barely see this guy. But it was kinda cool, in color.

Here's the barn I was trying for. I don't care for the picture. I'm just including it so you can see where I'm thinking and what I was trying. Plus, all my B&Ws are dull and flat. I really want to be able to catch the rich black and pure whites and all the shades in-between they used to routinely get back in the 40s, 50s and even into the 60s.

My B&W is flat. Dull. Ugly grays.

Here it is in all its blazing colored glory. Still dull but in color.

But I'm thinking. I tried using this dead tree to lead into the barn.

He took his shot and...he missed.

But he'll try again!!

And that's it. The weather broke for a short while and I hopped in my trusty new steed and rode off to adventure.

It's out there but I know that I have to be mentally able to go and get it. This weather has affected me more than I had thought it would. It sorta puts me down for 4-6 months and that's a lot of time to lose. I have to learn how to deal around it. Another one of those challenge thingies, eh!?!

Yep!! It is.

Hooah!!