Balancing, stages, profiles

I'm cleaning out some old lyrics game storage, but I didn't want to lose this photo. Holly took it of Marty playing on some broken shopping carts behind the grocery store, years ago. I'm guessing they were 13 and 16, but am willing to be reminded otherwise. For the lighting, there's a lot of detail in the profile. Children grow up, but all the stages of their childhood stay alive in their parents' memories.

Chariots

Because of this photo, someone told me the word for these bench seats: Chariots. Because of that new knowledge, I took photos of several other examples, in southern California, this past week.

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Here's one by Bea Mantovani, which links to a Just Add Light post in which it appeared:

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There's a photo here of two plain boxes, on an Australian merry-go-round, that (says the caption) were once roofed and draped.
http://carousels.org/psp/SemaphoreBeach/DSC00022.html

Zebra Day

One day, there were lots of zebras and zebra-like things.




The building reflected on these cars (click to enlarge), and across, there were striped awnings:


Kept on seeing stripes!


On this one, the zebra's legs faded into the tiger's stripes. It shows in the photo, but it wasn't the purpose or intent of the photo. The second one is the tiger on the Encino merry-go-round (the first one shows up top), and the stripes were carved into the wood.

Where have I been this week?

Locals are asking me where I've been and I forget, and I'm confused, so I'm going to make a list. Also, I'll need to identify carousel photos and this might help.
Sunday, to Roya's sale in Jennifer's yard in Bixby Knolls (Long Beach), and Cypress College to a flea market and to see Rent.

Monday, Northridge (to Rose's apartment, and to eat at Joyce's Cafe), then Encino (outdoor merry-go-round) and then a mall with a two-decker carousel outside a Target (Westfield Topanga Mall). Canoga Park, outside the mall, they were setting up an ice skating rink, outside. Then Santa Monica pier, where the merry-go-round was closed in its building, but we could see it through windows. ("A few miles north, the original Santa Monica Pier features a newer amusement park, similarly called Pacific Park. Today, the rides and attractions of the Santa Monica Pier include the Carousel that is featured in the 1973 Academy Award -winning film, The Sting." *)

Tuesday, Shoreline Village, in Long Beach: The carousel had arcade games up against it. We went and took photos of the ferris wheel and roller coaster.

Wednesday, Two malls next to each other. South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa had a big carousel, but all horses. Nice chariot. And a smaller section of the mall, across a road, had a small, English King Arthur carousel.

Thursday, Mary's Cafe in Sierra Madre, then Monrovia, Covina, Pasadena to the museum, Citrus College to see Fiddler on the Roof.

[added from Pam's comment below]

Friday, Saturday, Sunday - The HSC Unschooling Symposium in Cypress/Los Alamitos.

And, unexpectedly, Sunday night - wandering in the dark in a little orange grove in Northridge.

Monkey with pockets; Velociraptor with knife

The theme of this week has been photos of merry-go-rounds.  I will never be able to share everything I've seen and learned, but I'm going to try to share some of it!

At Encino Plaza, there is an outdoor merry-go-round.  Because it's the first one we saw, I assumed more would be outside, but this was the only one.  The others were in malls or in buildings at piers.



 





There was another dinosaur, and another weapon, on other rides later in the week, but they weren't together.



King Arthur's horse has a sword in a scabbard, so that suggests that it's the rider who's expected to use (or imagine using) that velociraptor's knife, and not that the crazy lizard is going to pull out his own knife while he keeps chasing those sweet, innocent mammals.

Same sun, different horizon

I saw the sun come up in Phoenix, and go down in California.

It made a really long day, especially since one was Sunday morning and the next one was Monday night. :-)  Still... pretty exciting that neither was in same-old New Mexico.

Mailbox photo collections (lack of)

It seems there must be a blog or site dedicated to a collection of photos of mailboxes. Somewhere in my stuff is a photo my mom took of me, at the age of three or so, standing tiptoe to try to look in our mailbox right after my mom had stencilled the mailbox. I hope I find it again someday. I think it's in an envelope of a dozen of my best photos which an acquaintance took to scan for me when scanners were new. He had them on a webpage that's gone now, and the photos are in an envelope he returned and... It's somewhere. Yikes.

But MAILBOXES?

If anyone knows of a solid, regular collection, please leave a link below. I'd like to link it on my wheelbarrow blog. I would have called my blog wheelbarrow.blogspot, but someone already has that; also wheelbarrows... Bummer. Someone has mailbox.blogspot, too, but there's only one single photo from May 2012.

I found these smaller-than-a-blog collections:

23 Pleasant Mailbox Pictures
17 Pictures of Old Rustic Mailboxes
Here in ‘Merica, we love our mailboxes (34 Photos)

I take photos of my own mailbox sometimes. I wish I had more, of all my mailboxes ever (though there haven't been that many). Take a picture of YOUR mailbox!!

My book mentioned casually

This is the first time I've seen a photo of my book with unrelated books. I've seen it with other books about unschooling or parenting.

This blog came up in a yahoo alert. It's a calm and calming post, and says in part "I've been taking Sandra Dodd's Big Book of Unschooling along with me these days; its little bits and bites are perfect reading when I have a few moments to myself outside Irish dance class or waiting for a co-op class to finish up."

Direct feedback is always appreciated, but there's something extra special about discovered mentions—like finding wild strawberries or rare mushrooms growing in the woods.

My favorite photo

A carousel at Hollycombe Steam in the Country, Hampshire, taken June 2011. I went back and took some other photos of the same carousel in 2013 and they're not nearly like this one for luck, light, framing and symmetry.

It's been the background on my iPad, and the iPad is unwell, so I'm putting it in several places for safekeeping.

I will have other favorites other times, no doubt, but this year, this is the one.