Tuesday, July 21, 2009

The Beach Club part one



This past weekend I took my son to his Oma and Opa's house on Long Island. They live in a lovely town with large homes, old trees, manicured landscaping, the same ubiquitous floral wreath on every door and quaint shops in the village. Because it rarely gets hot, most older homes do not have central air, relying on window AC units when the mercury rises above 90 degrees.

This weekend the hydrangeas were in blooms in various shades of blue and purple. Black-eyed susans danced in the breeze and impatiens brightened shady nooks in flower beds.

We spent a good amount of time at the Lawrence Beach Club on Atlantic Beach this weekend. It is an old club that some families have been going to for years and years. There is a main dining room, an upstairs dining room and bar area forbidden to children, lockers with showers for changing and cleaning up, a pool, tennis courts, playground, shaded dining deck, and of course lovely beach access.

We attended a Family Dance Saturday night geared toward the kids. The boys wear blue blazers, or the occasional seersucker suit. Some have ties, most wear shorts and loafers. The girls are lovely in their Lilly Pulitzer dresses or other cute sundresses with jaunty bows in their shoulder length hair. All the children are bronzed by the sun and run wild with the confidence that this is a safe place to be. Younger boys wrestle in the sand in their blue blazers or climb the dunes. The older boys try to look cool on the dance floor in their madras shorts and aviator sun glasses. The girls, all the girls, are on the dance floor twirling their dresses or learning the latest line dance.

My son chose to stick close to momma. He made several trips to the buffet learning that there are several types of salami. At the dessert buffet, he learned that his eyes are bigger than his stomach,leaving one of his two scoops of ice cream to turn to a cold soup.

At the end of the evening he asked to leave, feeling exhausted from playing on the dunes and dancing next to his table. One the way home, he asked if he could take off his "costume". I tried hard not to laugh in the back seat of the car. I had spent quite a bit of time earlier explaining that kids in New York dress differently than kids in Texas. He was convinced he looked silly in his blazer. Later he referred to it as "the stupid jacket". Again, I had to suppress my laughter. I had tried to get him to wear the outfit his Oma had planned for him complete with sand dollar tie. He looked adorable. But like his father, he has definite ideas about what looks good and what does not. Maybe next year, he will remember that all the kids dress that way and he will submit. Somehow I doubt it.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

What can I do?


My friend Kurt, one Rachel's helpers on the ranch, recently had surgery to remove a cancerous growth from his brain. He collapsed while doing some chores and had to be rushed to the hospital for a diagnosis. The news was not good. Cancer. The doctors found it when they went into his skull to see what the mysterious shadow on his brain was. They removed what they could and he was released a few days later.

He is a super mellow guy who is used to a physical lifestyle. He wears a Chicago-style handlebar mustache and frequently is shirtless when he is doing chores outside around the house. His horses are his pride and joy. He has 5 pure bred Andalusians. A stallion, 2 brood mares and 2 fillies. They are sweet and wonderful and give him so much joy. He is worried, I think, about what will become of them should he not survive the brain cancer. In this economy, not many are breeding or buying expensive horses no matter how stellar the bloodlines. There is talk of setting up a trust for the horses and creating a non-profit foundation to care for them and, in turn, promote the values of the Spanish Riding school here in Central Texas. This is all a new concept to the friends who surround and support him now. We are trying to figure out how to make his wish come true. We could develop our skills (horse and human)into a therapeutic riding center eventually.

I was taking photos of the horses last night and snapped a photo of Kurt playing with Espera his 3 month old filly. As I went through the edits last night, I fell in love with the photo. You can see the staples in his head from the surgery, his muscular arms from years of physical labor and the love he has for his horse.

This morning, I thought what if I started taking photographs, formal portraits or candid, of folks who are terminally ill. The families could donate the fee to the not yet created, but soon to be, foundation for the Andalusians and education. I could do short videos too. Having just dealt with my horse's death, the loss of the photos I had taken of him, and the comfort I get from the video of him, I thought the feeling may be double or triple for someone trying to struggle with the illness of a loved one.

I would love to have a wonderful photo shoot of someone I loved to remember them by. I plan to do formal portraits of Kurt very soon, while he still looks strong and healthy. If our prayers work and the cancer goes into remission, then we still have great pics of him. I feel like this is a way I can help both families and provide money honor Kurt's wish to have the bloodlines of his horses and the values they represent carried on.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

cool manipulated pics


So I lost all my recent pics of Sahil when the hard drive crashed in April. I didn't want to spend 500 bucks to recover what was there because I thought I had most of it backed up. Well, not quite. I did some video frame grabs for my friend Marjorie Moore, She is a fabulous artist and said she would paint a picture of Sahil in the future for me. She needed stills with some life so I looked through the video and grabbed some frames. Since the quality was dicey, I didn't mind putting it through the Photoshop wringer. These are my first efforts.