Back to UCR

 As they used to say several decades ago, "I went to the UCR gardens and all I got was this lousy T-shirt!". Well, they said no such thing, I am making a feeble attempt at humor. Today, I wanted to go out somewhere and get some exercise, but no walk around the same dreary streets where I normally walk. I am so dead-tired of walking here, and I need a change, something to inspire me, not just trudging along that dreary stretch of road, so I went back to the UCR botanic garden.

It was not nearly as windy as it had been yesterday. The wind was the main reason why I hunkered down at home all day yesterday, and it frustrated me. It was a very warm February, and temperatures had ventured into the low to mid 80s. It was quite unseasonable, and while Texas has a catastrophic episode with a major snowstorm that took out power lines last week, we are basking in the sun. My big fear, and what so many others are warning about, are that these seasonal variations are now extreme, and we are in the midst of catastrophic climate change. This can't be normal, and for us in southern California, it felt as if we didn't even have a winter. 

I went at 9:30 a.m. and found no traffic. It took me slightly more than 30 minutes to arrive, and I paid for my permit and walked up and climbed the hills. My main intention was to get exercise, but I also took my Nikon D750, a DSLR camera, and used it in monochrome format with a red 25A filter. I will publish some of those photos tomorrow, not today, I am too exhausted. I took almost 200 photos, and I loved the look with the filter. It makes me wonder why I spent so much money and time taking photos with black and white film, but if I were to explain it, it seems so much more artesanal with film than with a digital camera. I am more careful, and it puts me in a different mental state, evaluating and selecting each scene carefully. So I will continue to use film, but will probably be winding down. I say this cognizant of the contradictions, because I just spend about $400 buying black and white film from Freestyle. It seems as if it is a desire that I will have to wean myself away from as I seek to start minimizing costs.

It was warm, but not too warm, so I got away with wearing an exercise jacket. However, near the top, the wind was chilly, and I was glad to scramble down, with no tablet of commandments, but still, getting out of the wind. There were no clouds, none, it was a blank and bare and blue expanse, but the red filter darkened it in my photos. 

Towards the end, I couldn't resist taking some color cellphone photos. Here is a selection. I took very few, so these are most of them. It was a very pleasurable trip, even if I felt I was choking with the back brace I was wearing. I had to wear it not because of my back but because of my hernia. My guts are spilling out and I am losing, as the hernia doctor told me a week ago, "structural integrity in my torso". 

By the way, it was mom's birthday today. I hope she had a quiet day, but deep inside, I knew I wanted to get out to avoid any confrontations with my brother or with others who would come to wish my mom a special occasion. My brother did come at about 3:30 p.m., and he sounded bitter and angry. I thought he was going to start yelling at my mom, and I stayed inside and didn't greet him. He went away quickly, but the neighbors saw him coming too and they stayed outside to monitor the situation. They know about his episodes of violence, and I would like to think they were looking out for us. Now, we will have a replay of this situation all over again, because Mother's Day is coming up in a week and a half.