Monday

I'm a sucker for red poppies. As a child I learned how to make poppy people: You fold the petals down and tie them around the stem for body. Stick a stick through crosswise for arms. Done.

Spring

It is the last chance to check out the poppies in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. The peak of the blooming season is over, but it is said that the North Poppy Loop still has flowers to show. I went there a few years ago at the hight of the peek of the poppy bloom, and it was quite a sight. From a distance it looked like somebody dropped hundreds of tons of bright orange stuff on the hills. It's also a nice drive.


Back in the olden days all you had to do is drive to Hollywood to see some colorful flowers. It must have been a long time age when it was covered with poinsettias instead of tourists. Technically they are not spring flowers, but who's counting.


You could also head up to the hills and check out the dogwood, like young Babs did, back in 1941.


Babs' friend, Miss Joyce McGonigle lived in a bungalow in South Pasadena, built in 1924.

Poppies

I drove out to the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. From a distance it looked like a monstrous chemical spill. The poppies were everywhere, inside the reserve and outside of it. Once I got there I was surprised how many people were there. Fortunately the many windy trails did a pretty good job dispersing the crowd. Of course everyone and their grandmother were carrying cameras. Me too of course: just another camera wielding lemming.

I was pondering about the role of the camera in hour leisure time. There seems to be this pressure to be having "fun" in our free time. The standard monday morning questions in the office are: "What did you do this weekend?" or "How was your weekend?". To the latter I usually reply "short" and that successfully diverts the course, but there is this lingering sense that I'm not utilizing my free time to the fullest, I should have gone bungee jumping, ran a marathon, gone to the beach, to a party, something. Vacations are the same thing in overdrive. If you are out of the office for a week or more you better be traveling or you are a some sort of loser. When we travel there is the pressure to take photographs to prove that we were there, having fun. Sometimes I feel the recording our fun is getting in the way of experiencing it.
I like driving around on little 2-lane highways. It's very relaxing. I saw some sagebrush that from a distance looked like a flock of sheep standing extremely still. Then I realized they were a flock of sheep standing extremely still. They were grazing.