Goodbye to Kodachrome

A nice history of Kodachrome, with thoughts about its place in our emotions, here.

The story of Kodachrome is a romance itself, an odd intersection of the worlds of science and music.

Dad, the professional, preferred Kodachrome over all other films for slides, because of its color saturation and archival quality.

Somewhere along the line, I lost a roll of Kodachrome which contained images from a trip Mom and I took with Marianne and David, when David was quite small. Guess I'll just have to carry the images in my "sweet little 'magination". Dang, he was a cute kid.

One image I remember framing was little David in a yellow slicker which was too big for him, walking in misty rain along a boardwalk over mud flats between steamy hot pools in Yellowstone. He was cute even enveloped in yellow. We sang "How Much Is that Doggie in the Window", with variations, in the car. That wasn't on the film, but it's still an image in my head.

The Sometimes Bumpy Road to Progress

Before we left on our last whirlwind trip to Utah, we heard a story in church about a one-eyed, non-flying pet crow. After attaching a dog kennel to the crow's cage to allow her more freedom during the day, the crow's "daddy" would hear her screeching at sundown, clinging to the side of the wire kennel, unable to find her way back home to her comfy cage. He would have to unhook her claws from the wire and put her back in her home. In her anxiety, she resisted leaving the side of the kennel. Sometimes we are the same way. God wants us to move on to a better place, but we "cling to the wire". Sometimes when we "let go of the wire", progress comes in fits and starts.

While David was talking to people at a foothill facility in Utah, I got out of the car and was met by the most fearless Magpie I have ever seen. Glossier and fatter than the one here. It took food from my hand, even though I was a complete stranger. It flew around, showing off and flirting. And following its interests. Magpies are related to crows, and this one sort of looked like a medium-sized crow with prettier plumage. Quite a contrast to the story about the pet crow stuck to the wire in fear. Kind of uplifting.

David had a wonderful interview, but he did not meet all of the qualifications for the job. I was great to see Mom again. We went home in light spirits. Since that time, David has had another nice interview. When it's time, he'll find the right job.

He's back to work in the house. The sheetrock part is done and the kitchen arch rounded out. Now he's re-doing the surfacing and texturing in the living room and hall. What a mess. Things are piled up everywhere, covered in drywall dust, and the contents of some book cases and a hutch are in boxes. But the job that was done when the house was built has always bothered him, so I'm glad he's fixing it. I haven't been able to get into the office, the back bedrooms or the back bath for a few days. I'm taped into the media room right now. Things should look a lot better soon.

We've also been juggling dogs and cats in the recent wet weather (for which we are grateful). Princess Cat Darla accidentally came into the house while Troy the Giant Dog was inside, causing a big commotion and leading him to think for several days that she was still in the house. I winterized the Kitty Condo and made sure their heater was working. I put a kitty heater in the big dog house in back (Maggie, Troy and Little Buddy came in with me part of the time - it was a little crowded with the 4 of us). I set up a cold retreat in the garage for Sparky, who normally wants to be outside. Maybe it's his Husky/Labrador background. Huskies sleep in the snow, and Labradors were bred to retrieve fishing nets from the ocean. Brrr. He's getting unsteady on his feet and can't get his footing when he's lying on slick surfaces, so now he has a bumpy rubber mat and ridged fabric carpet. He's only wanted to come in on two nights, and I've still had to guide him into the garage against mild protest.

Troy and Maggie have stayed in the house with Lucky a couple of nights during the rain, leaving Little Buddy in the big dog house by himself. He gets separate snuggle time, as he still chews furniture and sometimes gets too playful when the other dogs want to rest. Old Dottie gets a kitty heater in her doghouse next.

We finally have new neighbors across the street, but the house next door is still vacant. Our princess kitty Darla is starting to think the house and yard next door belong to her.

Things are rather unsettled in the world at the moment, but President Obama gave a graceful speech in Oslo. He's on a learning curve, too, I think. On the lighter side of American media and politics, William Shatner and Sarah Palin read from each other's works on the Tonight Show. Maybe you remember Shatner's dramatic reading from Palin's Twitter posts, or his self-parody with "Rocketman".

But back to everyday life: At our fun Branch Christmas Party, the Cox family brought an entire "Polar Express" train painted by an artist friend on refrigerator boxes. The kids got to hear the story read to them in front of the train, while getting little treats. They also heard the Christmas Story via whispers from "Maurice", the shy camel hand puppet who belonged to one of the Wise Men. We sang carols and ate.

I made Spanish Green Beans and a big bowl of coleslaw very similar to this Christmas Coleslaw. I will post more lated on how I used the excess cabbage (bought too much for the party).

Mom's 80th Birthday Party

Not everyone throws a party with dancing when they turn 80. But Mom did, of course. It was a wonderful idea and I think everyone had a good time.

We had a hectic afternoon last Saturday, but I managed to get a few pictures. I haven't figured out how to get any of them on this blog page yet. All of Mom's kids were there. Jeanine flew in from Oregon. We had lots of other relatives and friends, there, too. Many people with wonderful memories of past times together.

Mom planned the colors for her party around a tablecloth her sister, Claudia, had given her. The roosters on the tablecloth had a little lavender in their tail feathers. She had lavender flatware, plates and napkins, lavender M&Ms and a lavender hydrangea as a centerpiece on the refreshment table. She ordered chocolate and carrot cakes and bought nuts at a specialty store where they keep nuts fresh. We prepared cheese and grapes just before the party. David bought dates to go with the nuts.

It was one of those relaxed kinds of parties with old-time country dancing. You could hear yourself over the music. Which was a good thing, because there were a lot of interesting people to talk to.

Mom's friends who played for the party included musicians who played at the driveway dance at our wedding reception. Mom arranged that, too. Jeanine joined them for a few pieces.

Last Saturday, Julie taught and called the Virginia Reel - more like this one than this one. My foot stuck to the floor when I was sliding (nephew David was my partner, and he was enthusiastic). I fell but was not injured, thanks to the floor in the cultural hall which is built like the floor of a basketball court. Note to self: Get some dancing shoes. No more rubber soles when dancing.

I taught some of the nieces, nephews and others a rudimentary Varsovienne and a simple Schottische. Not nearly as fancy as this one, danced in a square. It was the elementary school version, sort of a partnered line dance. It's a very old, genteel dance. Some new steps for the Sweetheart Schottische here. Never considered doing the Schottische to Reggae until I read the Wikipedia entry.

You could dance the swing to many of the pieces played at Mom's party. More people knew the Swing than many of the older dances. And there were waltzes and polkas. It was the kind of a dance where Betty could become a boy to teach the Virginia Reel to a little girl, and where the young father of a disabled little girl did not need to feel self-conscious about taking her to the middle of the floor to dance with her, in her wheelchair.

A lovely evening. It started to rain as we got home. A brief downpour, with thunder, started as soon as we had unloaded the car. Dramatic. David, in the kitchen, thought he heard gunfire. Jeanine, in the living room, discovered that it was fireworks after the football game at the university. So we watched fireworks from the front door. Not everybody rates fireworks at the end of their birthday party. But Mom did. She deserved it.

I'll write more about our little trip later.

When things aren't where they're supposed to be

A while ago, David decided that it was time to tackle the imperfect finishing of the walls in the house. Most people wouldn't notice, but he did. It has bothered him for years. In preparation, we moved things from the bedroom and bathroom to the shed. We moved the furniture into the media room and the closets (except for the bed). No pantyhose for church one week. The blankets went in the living room.

David started re-doing the bathroom walls. He used an oil-based primer and everything. Then we went to Utah.When we got back. David's Mom had tidied up quite a bit, but things were still out of place.

Laundry stacked high (at least is was clean). The dogs had dug a little hollow under the Iceberg rose. Things took longer to do. Sometimes I couldn't remember where an item of clothing was. We had to unpack from our trip, too. Soon there was dust from drywall mud everywhere. I got strep throat (which responded quickly to penicillin) and we got colds which lingered. We cleaned a lot of the mess up, put the dressers back and . .

The dogs went into the bedroom to inspect. Lucky grabbed a pair of socks and laid on the bed on his back. Little Buddy started chewing on the nightstand. Troy the Giant Dog hid under the bed with only his tail sticking out. When he didn't come out for a biscuit, I tried to make a space for him to back out. He worked his way all the way under the bed to where we could see his face, and his big, brown eyes were mournful. We moved the bed and he was free at last!

The bedroom walls look better, especially to David. We'll have more shelves in the closet and the towel racks in the bathroom are more secure. We have little constellations of paint spots in the corner of one set of sheets. One looks like the Big Dipper. Whew. A lot of work. I was inspired to start throwing away old magazines and such.

Now David's started on the living room. We moved the table and laid drop cloths. One of the dogs found an old stain on a drop cloth and pooped on it. I just caught Little Buddy eating a ballpoint pen. Dust everywhere indoors. Outdoors, there's a gopher under the apple tree.

Here we go again. So much for getting normal things done. But we'll get a few big things done. In other news, we're still dealing with some very bizarre bureaucracy, and it's the anniversary of 9/11. Which puts our mundane problems in a little perspective. Lots of things, and people, aren't where they're supposed to be. Andrew Klavan has a piece up about the power of ideas. A clear, poetic presentation, though not everyone will agree with all the ideas in it.

Like all real things, ideas have qualities, characteristics. There are true ideas and false ones, practical and impractical, good ideas and bad. According to their qualities, ideas exert a force on human action. . .

Ideas create a tension between themselves and our behavior—and the resolution of that tension can set the very course of history. . .

Memories with Marilyn

It was wonderful to see my cousin Marilyn at the family reunion. My memories of her go way back. When she was a preschooler, she became famous in the family for her ability to identify the makes and models of just about any car on the road. She got some coaching from her Dad. I wasn't famous for anything at that age. I wondered if I would ever develop a skill comparable to her mastery of car recognition.

We are about the same age and once lived only a few blocks apart. We played together. Marilyn and Carolyn. Once in a while, we also hung out with our more sophisticated cousin Marie. Marie's older sister, Lynne, even put up with us. Marilyn and I reminisced at the reunion about an early memory of the mystery disappearance of the little moths we had caught. They vanished from the little plastic purses in which we were "saving" them. I can't imagine Marie doing anything like putting little moths in a purse, even when very young.

Despite our joint insect experiences, Marilyn never developed much of a tolerance for spiders. Once, when she and Dana were newlyweds living in the Farner's basement (at least, I think it was the Farner's house) she called me and I walked up to catch a spider that was in her house. It was quite a big one. Ever seen a picture of a woman standing on a chair because of a mouse in the house? It wasn't quite that bad. I think fear of spiders or snakes is just built into some people.

Growing up, I had bad dreams about black widows. I developed little rituals for jumping down stairs which I imagined would protect me if there were a black widow in the corner of the bottom step in the basement. But I was usually not too upset by other spiders. Mom told stories about watching spiders spin their webs above her head on the sleeping porch in the summer when she was growing up - including Black Widows. I fell somewhere between Mom and Marilyn on the "fear of spiders" scale.

I also have a fragmentary early memory of something to do with Marilyn's sweet younger sister Suzie and an earwig. I tried eating ants once, Suzie. And I think Suzie once drank perfume, too.

I remember their Mynah bird. Too cool. Later, Marilyn's mother, my aunt Marlene, adopted an orphaned (by its previous owner) caiman. Not everyone's aunt adopts a caiman. They take some specialized care. If someone had arranged for a dozen strangers to mingle with all my aunts and uncles on both sides of the family, and then asked the strangers which of my relatives they thought had a caiman at home, I don't think many would have chosen Aunt Marlene. But I really don't know who they WOULD have chosen.

Marilyn and I sometimes visited with Grandma and Grandpa together, too. When we were little, Grandpa taught us to sing Ach du lieber Augustin in German. Somewhere along the line, I also picked up the first verse to this song. Lyrics here. Sing along.

When I still thought I was too young to be a fan of a popular music group, Marilyn was already a fan of the Kingston Trio. We listened to their records in her basement room. I always think of them in striped shirts, for some reason. I remember the banjo snd guitars, as well as the singing.

Somehow, all these years, I have missed Steve Martin's banjo career, however. I thought of the Kingston Trio again when I came across a Steve Martin Banjo video today.

When we were teenagers, I remember Marilyn and Suzie's younger brother Jeff, Lynne and Marie's younger brother Brad and my younger brother Brent as sometimes being kind of ornery or mischievous at family gatherings. They've all reformed now.

It's nice to have extended family.

Desert Tourist Traps

On our way up to Utah, we stopped at Barstow Station, an improbable jumble of buildings and old train cars built in the former parking lot of the "biggest McDonald's in the World". It's a well-designed trap for tourists heading to and from the biggest tourist trap of all time, Las Vegas.

The proprietors know what people en route between California and Vegas want: "The Cleanest Restrooms in Barstow". Plus, the "historical" interest of old train cars (not really in a very historical presentation), fast food (even Chinese), candy, ice cream, tourist trinkets and Ex-Lax. There are "quick" lines for cash only at the McDonalds, for people on a limited break from a bus.

Normally, I'm not really impressed by "touristy" places, but I thought this one just fit the bill for a quick stop. Wouldn't want to stay for long, though.

Down in the low desert, past Baker and before Las Vegas, is a failed tourist trap. Someone in a little town apparently thought it would be a good idea to build a water park in the middle of nowhere in the desert. But who wants to go to the low Nevada desert just to swim? Or to fish? Who wants to go on to Vegas in wet clothes after a "swim stop"? This enterprise failed. But I imagine that this little town could have been a welcome stop for the men working on the railroad to Las Vegas. It succeeded the 20-mule teams hauling borax from Death Valley to Mojave. I can hardly imagine what this trip must have been like on rough dirt roads from the low desert to the high desert.

Life is hard in the desert. You need a good plan to survive. If you have a business, you really need to know your potential customers.

Back from our little trip

Well, we returned yesterday from our little trip to Utah. We were tired, but had good traveling weather both ways - Rain in the desert on the way - 69 degrees going into Las Vegas and 81 in the city itself - at 2:00 p.m. in August! Moderate monsoon weather continued in Utah - cool and overcast, a little rain, with one hot afternoon (hottest of the year) at 101 degrees.

Going home, we stopped at a casino in Mesquite in the afternoon. Our room was partially subsidized by gamblers. Only 103 degrees at 3:00 p.m. We parked in a shady spot. Skipped valet parking. The "real people" part of town - supermarket, Walmart, etc., are easily accessible from the freeway. Mesquite is in quite a pretty setting, surrounded by mountains. It's near Bunkerville, where our deceased friend Sylvia's family was from. She was born in a tent in Las Vegas, where her father was mining (I think), Early settlers in Bunkerville didn't have much more than tents. How spoiled we are.

We left Mesquite at 3:00 a.m. Clark County, Nevada, where Las Vegas is, must be huge. County fairgrounds are near Bunkerville and Mesquite. Settlers were able to establish dairy farms to serve Las Vegas after a road to the city was built. Hidden Valley Ranch is between Bunkerville and Vegas. The city is still more than an hour away from Mesquite even at freeway speeds.

It was 68 degrees outside Vegas (a "lake of lights" before dawn, as David put it). If you have to go through Vegas, that's a beautiful time of day to do it. Only 81 degrees in Baker. And as low as 64 degrees in the high desert.

David's Mom and Dad stayed with the animals, who mostly did fine. Maggie, Troy and Little Buddy refused to go outside once and Grandma had to show them a broom (don't know how they knew about brooms). Lucky went on strike for a while and wouldn't eat (he even refused chicken) or go outside. He demanded sympathy and love from Grandma. He broke his hunger strike with peanut butter and toast.

This trip was a very nice change for us. The dogs were thrilled to see us - raced around the yard. Geriatric Sparky and Dottie looked contented. Cats took everything in stride. More later on the family reunion, etc.

Remembering Tony Hillerman

There will never be another Tony Hillerman novel. My friend Keira introduced me to his books when she lived in Arizona, and I bought my first one in the Phoenix airport, which is decorated with Native American iconography. I just re-read "A Thief of Time" not too long ago. I really liked the insights Hillerman gave into the Southwest Native American cultures and the struggles between those cultures and the modern world.

I understood Navahos, in particular, a lot better because of his novels. I understood better why all the Navajos I knew growing up seemed so shy. And why missionaries on the Navajo reservation were called on so often to dress bodies for burial. The traditional Navajo ideas about the afterlife are very dark, and Navajos concentrate on the beauty of this life.

I also appreciate the way Hillerman made his characters into real people. Especially the Navajo Police officers whose lives we followed through several novels. New readers might want to start with the earliest books and move forward to the more complex later novels.

Several years ago, Mom, Marianne, Little David and I went on vacation through some of the territory in which Hillerman set his novels. We saw Indian ruins and canyons which were familiar when I read the books. Navajo names we read on the rodeo schedules were the same as those in his books. We battled little blackflies at Four Corners. I remember Mexican Hat and the trading post there. The motel owner told us the story of the artesian well under the river which was accidentally drilled while speculators were looking for something else (and which gave us water pressure in the little trailer-motel where we stayed).

I could relate to Officer Chee's surprise in one novel that his underwear didn't dry overnight in Los Angeles. Our clothes dried in minutes in Mexican Hat when we draped them over the caesalpinia bushes, one of the plants which sustains hummingbirds in the hottest, most arid parts of the Southwest. As an aside, once when I was visiting Keira and Wally in Phoenix, we revived a fledgling hummingbird which had ventured out on an extremely hot day and had fainted on the asphalt. Apple juice brought it back to life.

I once read in a Land's End catalog a Hillerman short story about a "skinwalker" (murderous Najavo witch) in the form of a wolf chasing a trucker on the highway to Mexican Hat, and haven't felt quite the same about that road since. His novels bring back memories of that trip and others - including the family campout at Capitol Reef.