Autumn 2013: Was four days enough?

When was the first day of Autumn again?

Last Sunday, wasn't it?

And when is the first day of Winter supposed to be?

Sometime in late December if I recall correctly.

Ah shucks.

What does the calendar know?

Wednesday I got wind of the fact that it was snowing up at Solitude.

I looked at the skies and decided I needed to go check out that report first hand.

I drove up Big Cottonwood canyon, rain spritzing my windshield as I wound through the canyon.

And then...

The rain turned white.

Snow!

Only a few of the aspens had changed...it is, after all, still early autumn.

The early bird colored bits looked glorious in against the white.

Misty, foggy snow...

Everything looked slightly surreal.

How is it that snow so magical that it can make even dead trees look artistic?

I took very few photos as I was reluctant to pull over in the foggy low visibility snow.

I turned on my emergency lights when I did pull over for extra safety.

Wish I had remembered to turn them off when I got home.

Thursday I spent car-less; my three year old car battery went dead over night.

It took until Friday for the local car shop to come bring me a new battery, since I was flying solo this week and Bernie had our other car parked at the airport.

(Isn't that the way it always seems to go when husbands go out of town AND leave you with just one car?)

Friday (today!) I got a big pot of baked potato soup going in the crock pot.

(Earlier  in the week I had made two gallons of turkey soup...crisp fall weather just makes me want to make soup!)

Got all caught up on my "to do" list.

Watched the mountains tops get covered with fog, then watched as they showed themselves again dusted with snow.

Wonder if Millcreek, my "walking distance" canyon was getting snow.

As soon as my new battery was installed I grabbed my camera and drove over to Millcreek to see what was going on.

The first half of the 8 mile long canyon had moderate amounts of color.

Enough to make me get clicking away.

Porter Forks colliding rivers was being nicely framed with colorful leaves.

(Someday...soon...I will be renting a wide angle lens so I can finally take a full shot of this lovely spot.  It will be well worth it to pay $25 for a day's worth of wide angle pictures of my favorite scenes.  It will be a test drive: I am pretty sure I want to own one, but the purchase price sticker shock is enough to make me want to test before cutting a check.)

Millcreek in autumn is so outstanding.

Some fine day I really ought to walk the whole 8 miles so I can photograph every bit of it.

Right above this scene....

Snow had fallen on the high peaks.

Where I stood it was getting light rain, which is just lovely to bring out the color of fall leaves.

When I looked up, it looked like fall was fleeing from winter,

Three season scenes:

The deep greens of summer

The multi colors of autumn

The white of winter.

All in one view.

Fall comes down from the mountain.

In this case, I think fall was doing a line dance

Or playing a round of follow the leader!

I really like this shot...autumn dancing down the  hillside.

Across from the line dance, the rain fell on me, with occasional bit of slush hitting me.

The polka dotted leaves: speckled, freckled fun.

I drove on...until the rain dotting my windshield turned to mush.

At the very top of Millcreek snow was covering the ground.

The funny thing about this scene is that each year I run up the canyon to see if the aspen has changed yet.

I swear the trees change  and drop their leaves in one day...the day that I miss coming.

This year I caught the colors on the trees, but the colors are covered with snow.

That's pretty nice too.

Do you see a circle dance in the mountain side aspen groves?

I do.... 

At the very top of the canyon there is a parking lot.

From the lot one can access several trailheads.

The getting the split rail fence into a photo without cars is tricky.

I can't blame folks for wanting to park where they can sit and stare at the woods.

For a moment I had a clear shot without cars. As I positioned myself for the perfect shot, a woman wheeled her car into the center of the shot.

There were plenty of other places to park, so I went up and asked if she would mind backing up into another parking place.

She totally understood and was happy to oblige.

 

Last week I spent many hours going through all my digital autumn related photographs.

After selecting 890 of them (the "best of the best"!) I created a chip to use on our large digital photo frame.

It is so nice to have one of the beautiful autumn scenes I have enjoyed over the past eight years slipping onto the screen every five seconds.

We've connected the chip with our large television screen too.

Seeing the scenes in 24" by 36" sizes is amazing.

It took a long time to create the chip; happily I can add to it with some of these pictures too.

Eventually I want to do a "Winter Scene" chip, a "Christmas Season" chip, a "Vacations" chip, a "Flowers and Plants" chip, a "Fishing Trip" chip (for Bernie) and a "Family" chip...a whole library of chips are planned.

I am glad chips are so inexpensive now that such a plan is reasonable.

With the way Autumn makes me want to take so many pictures, it isn't out of the question to think that there eventually will be an Autumn vol. 1 and vol. 2 chips.

Can't ever get enough of autumn!

Sing! Dance! Rejoice!

Today is a special day for some, a day called Simcha Torah.

Until about ten years ago, I had no idea what "Simchat Torah" might possibly be.

It showed up on a few calendars; no explanations were ever given and my usual curiosity failed me completely.

I never bothered to look it up or find out what it was all about.

 Then I made friends with folks that celebrated Simchat Torah (Rejoicing of the Torah), and was invited to a Simchat Torah event.

Oh how blessed was I!

The picture above is what it is all about for me:

The very last passage in the Bible.

For my Jewish friends it is the last passage in the Torah, or what we Christians call the Old Testament.

For Christians, it would be the last passage in the New Testament.

The Jewish population reads through the Torah in one year, each year.

They begin their new year of reading after a seven day holiday called Sukkot, during which time they are to live in temporary shelters outside with roofs that are open enough to see the stars at night.

Sukkot is right after Yom Kippur, the day of atonement when Jewish people fast and are to renounce sin and get their acts together, to express it in a modern phrase.

Imagine what it must mean to a community for everyone to take a full day to fast and pray and get their lives back on track spiritually.

Then imagine what it mean if everyone then basically went on week long campout together, a retreat, with everyone living in temporary huts, eating together, visiting and being able to see each other's faces for a full week.

Bonding time.

Sharing time.

Get real time.

(Anyone who has ever gone to a camp understands how connected one feels with one's fellow campers. It just happens!)

 While all that is going on, the community continues to do their daily scripture readings...

Until they come to the last scripture passage.

Everyone gets together again for that last reading.

Special groups are called forward to read passages.

The time I participated in Simcha Torah, the groups were little kids, teens, newest married couple, oldest married couple, oldest member of the congregation.

 

Little kids carried toy plush Torah roll toys...so cute!

 

Between the reading of the verses leading up to the final verse of scripture,  everyone sang with gusto, danced in a circle around the room, and cheered loudly.

When the final verse was read you would have thought the BEST thing in the world had happened.

The singing, the dancing: it was rock out city!

And then...

what really blew my mind...

They told me why they were partying.

Not because they had completed the reading for the year.

Oh no.

It was

because

THEY GOT TO START READING THE TORAH ALL OVER AGAIN!!!

Can you imagine that?

Of course the Jewish people treasure their Scriptures.

A baby is introduced to Scriptures early, with their finger being touched to the first letter of the Scriptures

"In the Beginning..."

and that first letter of the first word has a drop of honey on it.

The baby touches it, and then the finger goes in the baby's mouth.

The scriptures...are good!

Sweet even!

In worship services when the velvet encased Torah scrolls are brought out of a special cabinet, the scrolls are walked through the congregation.

People reach out and touch the velvet covering, then touch their fingers to their own lips.

So sweet...so sweet.

Sometimes I feel bummed out that in Christian services the Word is chucked into the racks in the back of pews, and flashed up on the wall via a powerpoint slide.

I get it...the Word is made available to everyone this way.

But the specialness of the Scripture is lost.

In traditional church worship services the Bible is read through, "Reading from the Old Testament" followed by "Reading from the New Testament", usually in a three year cycle.

Occasionally there is a push to get the congregation to read through the whole New Testament during Lent or Advent.

Celebration for the whole reading of the Word?

Never seen it happen.

Until I saw a Simcha Torah.

Now it is a celebration I wish all Bible believing groups would embrace!

 

(See one Messianic congregation celebrating here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i9h2UJyId0)

 

 

 

 

 

Autumn: Decorating and such....

The calendar says it is autumn so up goes my "Autumn Welcome" sign.

This is meant as a hint that I really would appreciate it if Autumn would come and kick back with us instead of playing chase/tag games with summer; a game that results in temperature variations going from

 whew it is hot/turn on the a/c!

 to

where are my slippers/turn on the heat!

This year I reverted to using my fake squashes and gourds from my Houston years where the heat of autumn made cooked pumpkin out of real pumpkins left on the porch.

I quickly learned that having real pumpkins outside in Houston was out of the question.

I've learned that the sudden freezes in SLC likewise make mush of pumpkins.

The fake stuff looks great from the street and no goopy frozen pumpkin mess to worry about.

Five years here...I've finally given in to the reality of local freezing autumn weather and am willing to go fake pumpkins again.

Inside decoration is minimal for now.

I add more later, for Thanksgiving, and I plan to make a real leaf garland when the fall leaf colors get rolling here.

Minimalistic is fine for now, at least in my humble opinion.

Some folks of course have other opinions on the subject.

An orange cat sprawled on the mantel does add a certain flair...

The exact placement of said cat is a matter of trial and error.

Looking out the window:

Cute.

 

Looking straight ahead:

Obviously sending a message about the state of his food dish.

Looking up at the ceiling:

He is playing mind games with us, trying to make us look up at the ceiling too.

It always works...

Seriously...the food dish is empty.

And I need some Greenies too.

Doesn't matter where one goes in the room, one feels like someone is watching every move.

Kinda spooky really.

Back outside, the mums from precious years came back nicely and recently even more were added to the flower bed.

I'll buy a few more yellow and orange pansies to fill in around the mums.

Then I will tuck in some glass jars

for holding tea candles which look so pretty lit up when we are expecting evening company. 

Saturday night we had our family feud football rivalry game:

San Diego State vs. Oregon State.

SDSU grad Jeff came with his family.

Bernie and I both attended SDSU but we are loyal to OSU where I finally got my degree.

The next door neighbor went to SDSU too, so he came with his 3 year old while his wife stayed uncomfortably at home.

(She is giving birth to their second child today...I was happy she could rest up instead of partying with us.)

I was so happy to have little Anne and Luke scamper about during the game, throwing the arms up for touch downs and throwing arms out for first downs, while we ate "football grub".

The table full of dips and carnitas and cookies and...and...and...

you know what I am talking about!

 

Autumn food.

Besides the lure of soup and stew and bread making there is also the abundance of fruit growing in our neighborhood.

I take walks and with permission, help myself to the bounty.

Tree ripened pears.

Oh yum!

Are you glad of Autumns arrival too?

We sure are!

Happy Autumn everyone!

 

 

Paper Lions: Kathie's boys come to town!

Somewhere along the way in blogland I hit it off with Island Sparrow, aka Kathie MacPhee.

I think we've been reading each other's blogs for about six or so years now and have discovered that we got married the same week in the same year, are both librarians, have the same camera, both of us own orange cats, we grew up on beaches and swimming, our husbands love fishing and oh, most importantly, we became grandmothers for the first time at the same time last year.

We "clicked" as best we could, considering Kathie lives on Prince Edward's Island while I lived in Houston and now Salt Lake City.

At one point in our early friendship Kathie even sent me an Anne of Green Gables hat with red braids!

If that doesn't bond a friendship, I don't know what will.

Occasional notes between us would express how much fun it would to spent time together some day.

Well, someday may come...some day.

Meanwhile, two of her sons are in a cool award winning band called Paper Lions.

And as luck would have it, the band was scheduled to play in Salt Lake City during their "My Friends" tour.

As soon as I found that fact out I booked tickets and was set to go!

Only to find out that Bernie would be out of town.

I asked if either my son or daughter-in-law could go with me.

Turns out both of them went with me, and Luke got to go too due to babysitter scheduling issue.

Now just between you and me and the rest of the universe:

I happen to think Kathie's granddaughter Josie MacPhee is adorable, and I can think of no good reason why Josie and Luke shouldn't eventually meet and marry.

Just sayin'...

So it seemed perfectly reasonable that Luke have an opportunity to try to win Josie's dad over.

 

We ran into Josie's dad John (aka Lead Singer of Paper Lions) before the show.

I handed Luke off and let him work his charms.

 

Luke: So you are Josie's dad?  Kinda not sure what to say here.

Mim said I should try to win you over.

Luke: He's nice!  I like him!

Next my son Jeff (and his wife) met Kathie's son John.

Luke clearly felt right at home with John.

Then I asked if I could get a photo with John too.

Kathie had told him we would be at the show.

I imagine he is just over the moon to have an almost 60 year old grandmother as a groupie at his show. 

And a baby. 

He now has documentation that his band appeals to almost all ages!

 

We got to the venue at 7:30; another group was playing and Paper Lions was to go on at 9.

Easy time kill for us...we went back out to the street to Granary Row where we could grab some food from a food truck and do a little window shopping.

Shipping containers have been set up in the middle of one of SLC typical six lane streets for street music, food and fun.

Clever way to green up the side of a shipping container don't you think?

 

So fun!

Jeff talked with some of the folks around and learned that the street area is where many local musicians first perform.

If they do well they may be asked to perform for pay at other venues.

 

They had lots of "corn hole" games set up.

Rachel scored!

(Corn hole:  Corn filled bag is tossed at a "hole".  Kind of like horseshoes without danger of being hit by heavy object.)

There was some other kind of game with balls on strings.

I think you throw them at a stand and try to get them to stay.

Cosy interesting little shops inside the shipping containers.

The copper press artist was carving a block to use for printing.

I checked out the food carts and decided to go with this one.

Thai taco and Korean taco.

OH SO DELICIOUS!!!

Jeff went with egg rolls from another stand.

Luke eats what we eat.

He really loves spicy Mexican food, but I haven't seen him turn down any food. 

The kid is a great eater!

I've driven by this place a few times...someday maybe I swing in and see the auto museum.

The shoes:

I spent a good hour trying to figure out what to wear to this concert.

I was pretty sure it was casual, but how casual?

I hate to admit it but my wardrobe simply does not include "clubbing" or rock band clothes.

I've got business wear, church wear, ethnic/vintage wear, hiking/snow/camping wear, and cleaning the house wear.

None of those outfits seemed quite right for the occasion.

I dithered between a couple of outfits, thought about sending Kathie an email asking what the heck should I wear to this thing, and laughed at how I imagined she would laugh at the idea that I was worried about it!

In the end I defaulted to black slot neck 3/4 sleeve knit top, black pants and a long burnt orange cotton scarf, in honor of the fact that my beloved Oregon State Beavers were playing the University of Utah that same night.

OSU=Orange and black.

(That I chose the band over going to the game astonished my family.)

I decided I would glam up a tiny bit on my feet, wear a cool bracelet and necklace,  skip a  hat and call it done.

When I arrived at Jeff and Rachel's house they clued me in that the dress code was definitely more jeans and flannel with a dash of grunge.

I ditched my necklace..

and away we went.

About 8:45 we headed back to Kilby Court where the band was playing.

To get there one walked down a private alley in an old mixed use neighborhood.

Folks were just hanging out everywhere.

The band would play inside a garage like structure with a window so one could also watch from a patio area.

Luke practiced climbing steps while we waited.

He was doing pretty good until just before nine...about two hours past his bedtime.

Rachel drove home with him, leaving Jeff and me to enjoy the concert.

The patio area had a welcomed bonfire going; it had started raining while we were waiting.

 

And then....

Paper Lions cut loose!

 

The audience stood and rocked with them as they played.

Me too.

Jeff was impressed with their sound (whew!  he is pretty fussy about his music)

I had listened to several of their youtube songs (and here  and  here and a whole bunch here) and was glad that John invited singing along as I found myself singing anyway.

(Their instruments were loud enough to drown out my off key warble thankfully.  The youtube songs are their acoustical versions; the concert was far more rock out full drums/hot keyboard and guitar licks. Loved the energy!)

An hour on my feet, keeping up with the music with bopping and bouncing with the crowd.

Didn't want it to end!

After the show I scored the tour poster and two cds...

 

Kathie took the photo on this cd.

She took the photo years and years ago at her daughter's childhood birthday party.

Surely she never dreamed as she clicked the shot how it would one day be used.

And like a good mom, she isn't even asking for her sons for copyright $$$ for usage.

And check me out:

I got the Paper Lions button pin too!

The guys are doing a concert in San Diego in a week or so.

Seriously thinking of flying home to San Diego to catch the concert.

Would that make me a middle aged roadie, kind of?

Maybe I can just be a charter member of the Paper Lions Salt Lake City fan club?

Check their concert schedule: maybe you can catch one of their tour stops.

Clear your calendar, ink in the date and go!

So. Much. Fun.

!!!!

 

(And after the performance Jeff and I hopped in a cab to go home.

 I was treated to the cab's radio tuned in to the winning Oregon State Beavers hammering the Utah Utes.

Fireworks were exploding around the city for two other events as we were driven home through the  rainy night.  Absolutely surreal fun.

I caught the second half of the game on Jeff's tv; the game went on into over time and the Beavers won the game at four minutes past midnight local time.

If only Bernie, Kathie and her husband Roger and granddaughter Josie could have been at the concert too I would have called the night absolutely perfect.

The tour is called The Friends tour.

That title was part of the perfectness:

Kathie...love to call you a friend!