The 366-day photography challenge: week 29

It was Valentine's Day. It was cold and snowy outside.I was still healing from the sudden attack of influenza. It was to be my last day of my self-imposed quarantine. Fortunately, I was feeling better and my appetite had returned. My sister Diane brought me these carrots. One of them looked like a mutant, and I always photograph mutant carrots. 

The carrot looked much less mutant-like after I cut it up into matchstick sized pieces.

On Monday, I ventured outside for the first time since my visit to the doctor last Wednesday. I saw a cold beauty outside. In this snow pile, I see a lady happily asleep, dreaming of... what?... maybe meeting her true love? Waking her with a kiss? Oh, wait, never mind. That plotline was taken a long time ago. But still, she can be my snowy Sleeping Beauty.

Both the bear and I appreciate a little outdoor time after being cooped up inside for five days.

This is a small piece of town-owned land. The town owns various parcels throughout Grand Island. It places conservation easements on the land so that the land can never be developed. Some of the land is on "paper streets." There are also rights-of-way that are owned by the town. There are dangers on these small pieces of property, however. The dangers include ticks and hidden traps. The town government discussed banning traps on all town-owned land but was unable to come to a consensus.

The town government was able to agree only to ban traps at town parks and trails. Unfortunately, that still puts people's dogs at risk, if they are off leash or if they are on long, expandable leashes.

The benefit of the town owning the land, however, is that the wetlands are preserved in their original condition.

Everything is covered by a layer of snow. Sad to say, it doesn't take long before the snow turns gray and the luster is gone.

Before the snow turns gray, however, it forms a beautiful layer of whiteness on everything. The world glitters and glows and the snow reflects the brilliance of the sun on a bright day.

This is Karen Keefe. She is that rare person described by Wilbur in Charlotte's Webb (by E.B. White). Like Charlotte, Karen is a good writer and a good friend. Karen has been a journalist for a long time and she has been writing a series of articles about the history of Grand Island. The articles offer a fascinating glimpse into Grand Island in the past.

Karen took me to get some help because I was having technical problems with my camera. Larry checked over my camera and had a little fun with it. That is me with the cool hat that Mommy Lois made for me. I am relieved because my camera is functional.

Later on, I play Rummy Jack with my mom. It is a fun game. When I first started playing it, I found it to be challenging because I was never good with math. When I realized that I could build pyramids and focus on color, as well as numbers, I began to enjoy the game. It is a good and relaxing way to spend an evening.

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the snowfall was copious.

Most bears hibernate but this one enjoys sitting in snow.

The snow looks like magic on the branches of evergreens.

It clings to the needles and seems to hug them.

The plants that grew in these pots are long gone.

Before the snowplows come, the street is quiet, almost asleep.

It is in the quietness of a snowy day that stories are generated. One of my favorites is "The Snow Queen," by Hans Christian Anderson. It is about a boy named Kay and a girl named Gerda, who were best friends and neighbors. When a lump of ice lodges in Kay's heart, it turns him and his heart cold, able to see only ugliness.

Kay travels north to be with the Snow Queen, whose heart is exceedingly cold. Gerda, whose heart is warm and full of love for her best friend, follows Kay. She is told by the sunshine and the sparrows that her friend is not dead and gone and that she should try to find him. Because her heart is full of love, she would follow him to the ends of the earth if she had to.

Gerda gets much help along the way from flowers and birds. Eventually, she finds her heart's desire. And that's all I will say. If you'd like to read this story, you can find it at: The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Andersen.

On a snowy day, the docks and the river look like this.

Here are the snow-covered docks. They are silent now. No boats, no swimmers, no geese, no ducks. Just the water, the docks, and the sky.

I went with Karen and Betty to the first Lenten luncheon, which was held at Trinity United Methodist Church. 

Despite the seemingly nonstop snowfall, there was a big crowd on hand for the meal and the presentation by Father Tom Roman of St. Stephen Roman Catholic Church.

At Trinity, you can buy handmade goods that come from all over the world.

This is Father Tom. He gave an inspiring talk about faith in oneself, that God made us to be beautiful and to be the best that we could possibly be.

The meal was delicious!

Karen and I went to the Grand Island Memorial Library so that I could pick up a book to read for next Monday's book club meeting (The Paris Architect, by Charles Belfoure.) While we were there, Anne Slater, the children's librarian, told us about an upcoming performance by Gravitational Bull, a father and son team of jugglers.

Dave and Kyle Fultz practice their jugging in advance of their performance.

Anne Slater introduces the jugglers.

The audience is fascinated by the antics of the father and the son. Dave, the father, said that he used to work in industry but that he tired of all of the downsizing and the abrupt layoffs. When his wife suggested that he make a living doing something that he loved, he decided to try to make his juggling act a full-time career. It has worked out well for him and his son Kyle. Dave said, "I decided at some point that growing up was probably a mistake for me. I thought that I'd be much better suited for playing with stuff and showing off."

What happened to that ball?

The audience gets a chance to participate in the performance, and everyone has fun.

Thursday morning.

Citrus fruit is wonderful in the winter. Here is an arrangement of two types of orange. They look different and they also have a different flavor.

On Friday, Sweet Suzie Bear sits on fresh snow.

Doesn't she look totally cool with her sunglasses?

This is Zoe. Once, a long time ago, I wrote about her and her many meows. She is a very talkative cat. She has a feed-me meow, an open-the-window-so-I-can-sit-on-the windowsill-for-two-seconds meow, a give-me-attention-now meow, a I'm-getting-sick meow, a why-are-humans-so-stupid meow, and many more ways to make commentary. I still haven't figured out why humans are so stupid, so I have yet to answer that meow.

Yesterday, I spent much of the day in the kitchen. I made applesauce and baked cookies. This morning, I took a picture of these lovely and very chocolate cookies (my drug of choice).

Next week:  The adventure continues. There will be another Lenten luncheon, featuring Pastor Sung Ho Lee, who will share a message about fear of the future. And there will be much more! Please keep visiting me, right here, at Alice's Grand Adventures and tell your friends, too. I love my readers!

Be Not Afraid, part one

Note:  This is a series of five blog posts, based on a weekly series of talks at the Lenten luncheon series, sponsored by the Grand Island Minsterium. Each of the five churches that belongs to the Grand Island Ministerium was asked to provide a lunch and to provide a speaker to talk about aspects of fear and faith.
The first presentation was by St. Stephen Roman Catholic Church. The room at Trinity United Methodist Church was packed by people who eagerly anticipated a delicious lunch of stuffed shells and a fascinating and thoughtful presentation. The topic was fear that we are not good enough for God and for other people.  The speaker was the Rev. Tom Roman, one of two parochial vicars at St. Stephen's.

Father Tom's talk was passionate and enlightening. I feel that I am not the only person there who felt that Father Tom was talking directly to me. He said that God is infinite love and a sense of complete giving.

Father Tom explained that all of us are works in progress, beings in the process of being created by a God who loves us absolutely and completely.

As humans, we find it difficult to believe that God loves us so completely and that we are works in progress. We experience doubts about God and about ourselves. We do not believe that Jesus is preparing a place for us in heaven because we don't feel that we are worthy of Jesus or of heaven.

Father Tom explained that one weakness that humans have is that we believe that we were not created right. By doing that, we say that God did a bad job in creating us. We judge ourselves and we judge others negatively. It causes us to be depressed and angry at the world. One way in which we judge ourselves and others negatively is prejudice. We choose a group of people and pronounce them not as good as ourselves. It could be racism or some other form of prejudice. Prejudice is a sin because we are rejecting God's beautiful creations. We are saying that "those people" are not as good as we are, that God actually created junk.

Yet God creates us, not just to be good but to be the best that we can be. When we complain and express a desire to be someone else, "it is a slap to God," said Father Tom.

I know all about that. I have always wanted to be someone else. I wanted to be tall and beautiful and successful in love and in my career. I wanted to have perfect eyesight and ears that worked right. However, I could not be someone else. I had to be me, with all of my flaws and with all of the gifts that I refused to recognize. In that, I am just like everyone else.

I did not see in me what God saw in me. "We are created to be amazingly beautiful," Father Tom said.

Another weakness that humans experience is having the knowledge that God created them to be beautiful but, at the same time, believing that they cannot live up to God's expectation of them.

"We have free will. We can say yes to God or to something else. We label ourselves and define ourselves by our sins," Father Tom said.

Father Tom said, "God wants to help you with your problem. At the same time, he wants to heal many other problems that you have, including those that you are unaware of."

"You are not the sum of your sins. If you think that, you will never change."

Yet, humans at all stages of their lives are capable of change and of growth. Being a work in progress is the beauty of being fully human.

The 366-day photography challenge: week 28

Sunday, February 7th, in Cleveland, at North Presbyterian Church. 

The service was full of music and hope. Pastor Charlie Hurst shared the story of Ida B. Wells (1862-1931). Ida Wells was a journalist, sociologist, suffragist, and an early leader in the Civil Rights movement. She had many accomplishments. One of them was to help bring the barbaric practice of lynching to an end. Thousands of people, mostly African-American men, were murdered in this horrific way by racist mobs. "Today, that would be called terrorism," Charlie said. 

Unfortunately, racism and violence have not been brought to an end in the United States. We still have a long way to go to ensure that all citizens, regardless of ethnicity, are treated as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., would have us treated, "according to the content of our characters," not based on the color of our skin. In other words, we are falling short of ensuring that all people living in the United States are treated with dignity or even that their basic human rights are being respected. This is a sad reality in the United States in the 21st century.

How do we go about creating the Beloved Community that is welcoming and inclusive of all?

This is Brenda. She is a member of North Presbyterian Church. She is pure delight. She sings, dances, draws, paints, and writes poetry. I asked her if I could take her picture. She told me that she is not photogenic but the camera disagreed with her assessment. During the church service, she led the children in a song about notable African-Americans of the past. It is African-American history month. 

Brenda had made this painting to remember a man named Leo, who recently passed away at the age of 52. He had been a mental health worker until he became too ill to work. 

After church, Maria and I walked through downtown Cleveland. We stopped at a market for lunch and for ingredients for dinner. This market is located in a building that used to be a bank, the Cleveland Trust Rotunda Building. It is now the home of Heinen's Grocery Store.

The former bank is an early 20th century structure. In the United States, that is seen as historic, but, in much of the world, that is seen as a relatively new building. It was designed by architect George B. Post.

At the time, Cleveland was experiencing tremendous economic growth. The bank opened its doors in 1908.

Today, the building is now known as Heinen's Grocery store.

On Monday, I returned home via two buses and my own feet. It was a warm day, about 50 degrees, so walking the two miles from the bus stop, even with luggage, did not seem like an onerous task. A truck and a few people were outside, working on sewer liners.

On Tuesday, I went to zumba for the last class for two weeks. Kayla was radiating happiness about her upcoming trip to Florida to visit family.

By the time that I returned home from zumba, I was not radiating happiness. The room was spinning and my eyes were bulging. It was time for a nap, a very long nap. I had nightmares. They had something to do with presidential candidates saying the same things, over and over and over again. Something like that. Maybe that actually happened. My memories of Tuesday and Wednesday are already starting to dim.

I did not take one photograph all day. The blood tangerine, above, is actually a picture that I took on Wednesday... or maybe Monday... when you are sick, time seems to spin in an infinite loop.

On Wednesday morning, I felt sicker than ever. The room was spinning and my ears felt as if they had been plugged by cotton. My sister took me to see Dr. Haq.
He said, "Did you have a flu shot?"
I said, "Yes, you gave it to me, in October."
He said, "It didn't work. You have the flu."
He let me know that I was not his only flu shot failure. He prescribed Tamiflu for me because I had been showing symptoms for fewer than 30 hours at that point.
I am very thankful to Dr. Haq for seeing me at such short notice.

On Thursday afternoon, lake effect snow came down hard. It was something to watch. I took pictures of snowfall from safely inside the house. 

The neighbors' pool is closed.

I really like taking pictures of snow scenes in black and white.

Thursday was good day to stay indoors, which was OK for me because I was still too weak to go anywhere. I could, however, see that the medicine was starting to work.

The snow kept falling. It made a good spectator sport.

At times, there were whiteout conditions.

After the storm ended, the snowplow came to clear out the driveway. That was an especially good thing because it meant that my sister Vivian could bring pizza from Pizza Amore for my mom, her, and me to enjoy. Pizza Amore makes its pizza the traditional way, with a wood fire. They produce a variety of specialties, including a gluten-free crust. It was so good! 

By Friday, I was back in the land of the living. No more continuous loop, illness-induced nightmares. Still not ready to go outdoors, so I took more snow pictures through windows.

This used to be a garden. Now it is just a vast expanse of whiteness.

What the heck? Could I be doomed?

At last. Well enough to play with my food. It was too cold to go outdoors. The polar vortex has struck. A code blue was declared. That means that all shelters are open for extended hours, including shelters normally used only for natural disasters. A large effort is made to get homeless people off of the streets and into shelters, for fear that they will suffer the dangerous effects of hypothermia and frostbite.

Apples come in so many varieties and sizes. Both went into the fruit salad.

Today, it is still cold, not as cold as yesterday. It is also my last day of my self-imposed quarantine. Tomorrow, I will venture out, briefly, into the lovely white winter world.