TGIF

Tara Crowley, 2010.  All Rights Reserved.

Another Friday rolls around.  I hope the week treated you kindly.  We had a busy one: taking down the Christmas tree and ornaments from the porch.  Discovering a dead rat in a box in the garage.  Yes! You read that right.  We had the exterminator come out again after the mister spotted a large rat creature scurrying about in the garage.  The garage was bated again and obviously it worked pretty damn quick.  Anyway, we now have heavy duty clear storage boxes for the garage and are transferring items from cardboard boxes.  No more nasty surprises for us!  We live on a moderately wooded lot, with ivy and decking, and a large cedar tree (aka super highway for squirrels and rats) whose boughs come very close to the roof.  So, it looks as though rodent abatement will be an on-going thing in La Maison du Bonhuer.

We're getting a good amount of rain, and we are all happy to see it.  Lots of snow in the Sierra.  Happy ski resorts.  I am more than content to be tucked up in our cozy home, cooking food, tidying up the garage, working on photo editing, etc.  Speaking of which, the photo above was taken several years ago when I made a book of photographs about the neighborhood where I grew up.  "Inspiration Heights" was largely built between 1909 and 1915.  It is a marvelously distinctive area of San Diego's Mission Hills and retains most of the original homes.  There are a few modern monstrosities but they are, luckily, few in number.  It was a fun project, and one that I concentrated on for quite a time.  The house pictured above is on Sunset Blvd., on the route we walked to elementary school.  Those Dragon Trees are ubiquitous, and as a child I thought they were creepy and foreboding.  (We even imaged that a witch lived among the branches.)  As an adult, I appreciate the  unique architecture of both the buildings and the landscapes.  I look at it with an artist's eye.  But the memories and the experiences of childhood follow me as I traverse the curving lanes, alleys and wide boulevards.

Sunset Blvd. was the frantic scene of my reunion with my mother on the first day of kindergarten.  I was terrified to be there, and bolted from the classroom to chase my mother and little sister back to the car where she'd parked.  She parked three blocks away to give me a chance to get to know the route on foot.  Imagine her surprise when she went to start up the engine and I come, this red faced hysterical child, lunging at the dark gray automobile!  Not far from the spot, near the Mission Hills Nursery, years later, I would get into a fight with a friend in which we actually came to blows.  That area of Sunset must have been a dark vortex for me.  Bad ju-ju. 

Today, I'm going to be spending another day on photographic editing.   It's like candy.  I just can't stop.  My husband is the same way.  We gladly spend hours doing it, just feet apart.

I hope you have a weekend filled with good things.  Simple things.  Marvelous things.