An orchid got on the bus ...

 

A couple weeks ago, I was on my way downtown, when a young woman got on the bus, carrying a take-out meal in one hand and a potted orchid in the other. She told me she'd rescued it from the trash at her workplace; the owners use live plants to decorate the office and had thrown this one out to be replaced by new flowers. The woman had learned from her mom how to nurture and grow orchids so was taking this pretty creature home to care for. As in most workplaces, the orchid has been seen as a place-marker to be tossed aside when its usefulness had, in the eyes of its owner, become faded. It was pulled from the trash by someone who will tend and care for it as the beautiful bit of nature it is. 

Garden, the theme to Greet August

 

I took these pictures of a magnolia tree last April when the sun had not yet started its efforts to burn me up. I was thinking about that the other day and realized I've spent most of the past four summers hiding from the sun. I usually always wear a hat to protect my face and eyes from the sun's rays, but the actual heat is tiring. Consequently, I need to be out earlier in the morning, to walk and to take pictures. Even snakes are smart enough to realize that; you'd think I'd have figured it out years ago.

Composition in Gray and Green with Landing Light + A Rabbit Hole Story

 

There are two people in my little online world, Petrea and Dive, who periodically send me down rabbit holes. I'd sent Petrea a link the other night to a video that I thought illustrated the risk artists, writers, and performers face when posting any of their work online, that it will be stolen by just about anyone anywhere for their own use. I then proceeded to watch that video - again, in which a woman who is a fashion historian and seamstress, shows the differences in the quality of her work compared to the crappy knock-off she'd found for sale online. It's a wonderful video, full of quiet, snarky anger. 

I then went on to another of her videos demonstrating the creation of her version of Mr. Darcy's shirt. From there I went to the Etsy site where one can buy the pattern to make their own version of that wonderful, romantic garment. That shop offers a lot of period corsetry for sale, most of which seems to be made to order and is not inexpensive. While there, I found a corset from the 1810s, reminding me that I really wanted to know more about that period so that I could write more knowledgeably about a damn boat ride some people took down the Mississippi River in 1811. I made a note to myself that I needed to find out how builders of steamboats determined the most efficient number of buckets (paddles) to install on the wheels of their steamboats, then watched another of Bernadette's videos, one in which she evaluates the accuracy of the period costuming in various movies.

The movies discussed in the video range from the Vikings to the 1800s, with some time-traveling thrown in. Here she admits her lack of knowledge of certain periods and cultures and brought in several other people to discuss the historical accuracy of costuming in African, Indian, and Korean films. It was here that I was, again, reminded of just how large and rich the world is beyond my little parochial window. It amazes me to think about all the different sorts of people and cultures there are, of how beautiful it all is. There is so much out there to know and that I'll never be able to know enough is sometimes frustrating. But like Bernadette, I can be smart enough to call upon the knowledge of other people, such as the guy who knows a lot about the costumes in Korean movies, when I get out of my depth. Most days, that's just about to my ankles.

Climate: A Day Late, but It's My July Theme

 

I intended to post this picture last night, but I got home at nearly 11 p.m. and fell asleep shortly after. 

The picture was taken at the bus stop where I was waiting for any one of two scheduled buses. During that time a strong thunderstorm blew through, bringing straight-line winds that I was afraid might be a tornado. Until the winds, the shelter kept me dry. I raised my little umbrella as a shield against the rain, then took out my camera to record the actual raindrops reflected in the fabric of my umbrella. The rain was heavy enough that drivers chose to keep their cars on the inside lane, on the crown of the road to avoid the pooled water at the intersection.

No buses came. My cell phone is broken and the new one had yet to arrive, so I could neither check the transit apps nor call for help. At one point, lightning cracked above me - and you can bet I was not sitting on the metal seat!

Eventually, I noticed a bus coming towards the stop, but its signage read OUT OF SERVICE. The driver stopped, asked where I was going, then motioned for me to get on the bus, where I joined several other people, all of whom had been left stranded because the transit system does not have enough drivers to cover all the scheduled routes. The woman who was driving had been asked by her supervisor to drive the route for the bus to my neighborhood, as well as an additional branch of that route to another area. She made sure the other people, none of whom spoke English, got safely to their stop, then backtracked to my neighborhood. I arrived at my apartment's warmth at about 11 p.m., took off my sodden clothes, and sank into my bed.

A month ago, I made a little odyssey that involved shopping on one side of town, then going to see a movie at a theater on the other. Because of detours and traffic delays, trips that generally took two hours instead took three to four hours. While waiting for the bus home at the transit center, a security guard asked me whether I felt okay. In contrast to last night, the weather that day had been glaringly hot, in the nineties, and as I told him, I was "hot, tired, and flat pissed off." He told me about the driver shortage and the company's difficulty in finding, and retaining, qualified drivers. 

This brings to mind another sort of climate, that of one's working environment. I've heard this story repeatedly as well as having experienced it myself -- it's not that the people don't want to work, it's that they no longer want to spend their careers in a toxic atmosphere. When a company that pays well and is a union shop can't keep its workers, I'm willing to bet the management is the problem.

As previously mentioned, this photo is meant as the July theme day post for City Daily Photo. To see how other photographers around the world have interpreted the theme, click on the link or the badge to the right of this post.

So Bright They Looked Artificial

 

When I first saw these plants, I thought they were cheap, synthetic knock-offs. They brighten the area like spotlights. Fringes of delicate ivy dribble daintily from the edges of the pots, looking like lacy trimmings on sleeves.

Somebody really takes the time to consider the overall effect of these planters; It's been a while since I've seen anything as brazenly cheerful.

As Bright as the Summer, er, Sun

 On my way to the IUPUI Natatorium in Indianapolis, I walk past a series of large concrete planters, each dressed for the season in these bright colorful plants. I'd like to say they're as bright as a summer day, but the truth is, they're brighter; wildfires in Canada have produced enough smoke to dim the sun's glare for residents of states from the Midwest to New York. I can smell the burned wood. I chose to wear a face mask this afternoon, and I was not alone. A graphic on a TV news segment the last night showed Indianapolis's air quality to be the second worst in the world -- after Dubai! The photo below was taken at about 8:45 p.m.

Just So Pretty

 This was taken on a late summer morning when the water droplets still sparkled on the just-watered plants.