Taking in the Waters

Marin County | California

In the last few weeks Rica and I have taken a new look at a couple of Bay Area shorelines we haven’t explored in years. Unlike other parts of the United States, the weather has been mild and conducive to hanging out by the water.

The Berkeley Pier originally extended 3.5 miles into the San Francisco Bay, and was constructed in 1926-27 to serve the auto ferry service between Berkeley and San Francisco. The ferries were abandoned in 1939, shortly after the Golden Gate Bridge was opened. Today, the first 3000 ft are open to the public for fishing and recreational purposes. The rest is abandoned to the tides.

You can vaguely make out the downtown San Francisco skyline on the left horizon, and the Marin Headlands on the right.

Rica is staring down a seagull on the part of the Berkeley Pier open to the public.

Fort Baker is located in the Marin Headlands, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. What Rica and I have visited lately was built as a US army post between 1901 and 1910. The post played an important role in defense of the San Francisco Bay for more than 100 years before it was transferred to the National Park Service in 2002.

Rica  is getting a lesson in Dungeness crab identification from a Park Ranger at Fort Baker.

Million Dollar Baby

Marin County | California

Rica’s fractured wrist wasn’t her only medical malfunction lately. Last November she had foot surgery, repairing a bit of damage from a lifetime of caring for others as a physical therapist. That surgery turned out well, and yesterday she learned that her new wrist fracture is likely to heal properly without the insertion of a plate. Lucky, our dog, is much relieved. She has been slinking around the house after seeing me take Ben Schaffer’s ancient 22 LR out of the upstairs closet. (Lucky caused this latest injury.)

Hospital staff must be picking up Rica’s special person vibes because so far she has received million dollar treatment. I’ve known this forever; it’s good to see strangers notice.

Nurse Letty Fajardo was just one of the UCSF staff who took good care of Rica.

Dr. Olson shows Rica a photo from her foot surgery.

Rica on her scooter at Crissy Field. There’s always something new to see there.

Rica enjoys her coffee at Crissy Field in San Francisco.

Let’s See How Long This Will Last

Marin County | California

Let’s see how long I can stick with my 2013 plan. 

Actually, it’s the plan I started out with last year when I discovered WordPress and launched this blog. I wanted to publish something like a scrapbook where I could share my photos and interesting moments with friends. Previously, I’d gotten into the habit of sending favorite photos to friends using e-mail. Creating a photo blog seemed like a natural extension of this idea. If friends subscribed to the blog using the invitation on the sidebar to the right, they would automatically receive notices when I had more photos. Of course it would be nice if people I didn’t know also subscribed, but that wasn’t my original intention.

It turns out that about 65 people, often friends of Rica, my wife, signed up in 2012 to receive notice when something changed on the blog. A small number, but I’m grateful to them. I take it to mean Rica and I are important enough to them that they’re willing to spend a few moments of their day seeing what’s going on in our lives. I suppose it’s a strange sort of intimacy, but in this alienated world I’ll settle for it.

As we enter a new year I hope some of the photos will be good enough for anyone to enjoy for the few seconds most people allow themselves, but there will be others without merit except for their personal meaning to me. I don’t want to feel apologetic about my snapshots in this category. As I said, I originally created this blog to share with friends, and they will understand. Visitors I don’t know, I hope, will indulge me.

This year I hope to worry less about the quality of my writing. (I failed the third grade so I have to remind myself I’m making progress.) I read a number of photo blogs, and some of them are extremely well written. Bloggers like Thom Hogan, Ming Thein, Mike Thompson, Bill Beebe and David duChemin are naturals and can turn out interesting commentary almost every day with seemingly little effort. If you’re interested in photography, I suggest you check out their blogs. I can never reach their production levels or literacy, and I have to promise myself not to use this as an excuse not to write. Not every sentence has to be brilliant. So if I keep my promise you will see more awkward sentences and fractured grammar. That might be a good thing because it will mean I’m keeping to my goals for the new year. We’ll see.

Rica tripped over our dog yesterday and fractured her wrist. Old labs seem to expect that you will stay out of their way. Luckily, Dr. Fox and the nurses took good care of her at Marin General Hospital’s ER. I had my iPhone with me.