Faces of Long Beach, Day 176.

We were at the end of our walk, close to those seventy-five steps up from the beach to the bluff, when these two passed us on the sand and even though we’d already photographed Fernanda, Nicole and Kim, I couldn’t help myself, because Cynthia and Wylie just looked so photographable.

After I made their photograph, Vesta asked Wylie what pharmacy he worked at, because, you know, his hat says Pharmacy.

But, Wylie said, Pharmacy was a skate store on Pine.

“What pharmacy do you work at?” I said to Vesta, after we left them, laughing as we approached those steps.

“How was I to know?”

“I guess it’s a good thing his hat didn’t say White House on it.”

Faces of Long Beach, Day 177.

I took this photo of Al about six months ago or so and somehow lost it. But not really, I thought I either forgot how I labeled it after I put it on my computer or misplaced the card, because when I went looking for it, I couldn’t find it. Not until just now. And that’s because I forgot which camera I used.

And this photo has been sitting on a card in a camera I haven’t picked up in over three quarters of a year. I only found it, because I was thinking about maybe selling it, so I checked to see if it had a card in it and low and behold it did and this photo was on it.

So, belatedly, here’s Al. He’s our friend who lives on the RV parked behind ours out in the desert, where Vesta and I don’t live anymore.

And as for Al, he lived in Long Beach for a lotta years and I’m betting he’ll be back someday and the not to distant future.

So anyway, Al, I’m sorry it took me so long to find your photo, but I’ve found it now.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 178.

Here are Lauren and Andrew, who we met in front of the Art Museum, which we pass just before we take those seventy-five steps down to our beach. The museum is about a minute from our doorstep, so we didn’t have to wait too long to find our strangers.

After we photographed them, I asked them what they did for a living and Lauren said they were taking their time, trying to figure it out and Vesta said, “we’re still trying to do that.”

And then we talked about the places we’d lived on our search, France, Spain, New Zealand and others and when they asked if we’d worked in all those places, I said that we didn’t and then I came up with our normal cover story which goes something like this:

“We were in the record business when we were younger and one day, while we were on vacation in London, we saw that American records sold for a long more money in England than they did in America. And being a record collector, I already knew British records cost more in America. So we started buying records in England and selling them in America and vice versa.”

But somehow during the conversation the mask came off the Lone Ranger and I said something like, “And we mighta sold some bootlegs along the way” And that kinda gave the game away.

Ah well, it was a long time ago and nobody really cares anymore.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 179.

I’m on this stupid diet, because my weight went up and I wanna get it back down. So for the month of August I’m only eating breakfast and lunch, every other day. So for like half the month, I get no food at all, only coffee. And I’m doing okay. I thought I’d be grouchy, but so far no.

I only mention the above, because yesterday when we started our morning walk, we spied these two guys on the corner, behind a folding table. And on that table were like croissants and coffee. And it looked like they were free, so despite the fact that I wasn’t eating, I couldn’t help myself.

And they were free. All you had to do to get one of those croissants was to take a plastic trash bag, go away and come back with it full of trash.

I knew I couldn’t have one of those more than delicious looking pastries, but I took a bag anyway, Vesta did too. And we also got those clippy, extendy thingies that let you pick up stuff without bending over. And we set off to fill our bags with trash.

We did it because Jeff and Marko are with the Bluff Park Neighborhood Association and they have this ongoing, cleanup where we live thing going on. So we helped out. Granted picking up trash isn’t as much fun as walking on the beach, but we live here and I know it wasn’t much and we’re not gonna do it everyday, but every little bit helps.

And you’d never believe the kinda shit we picked up, you know the kinda stuff people thoughtlessly just drop on the ground and walk away from when their out walking around. But that’s a story for a different day.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 180.

I’m on this stupid diet, because my weight went up and I wanna get it back down. So for the month of August I’m only eating breakfast and lunch, every other day. So for like half the month, I get no food at all, only coffee. And I’m doing okay. I thought I’d be grouchy, but so far no.

I only mention the above, because yesterday when we started our morning walk, we spied these two guys on the corner, behind a folding table. And on that table were like croissants and coffee. And it looked like they were free, so despite the fact that I wasn’t eating, I couldn’t help myself.

And they were free. All you had to do to get one of those croissants was to take a plastic trash bag, go away and come back with it full of trash.

I knew I couldn’t have one of those more than delicious looking pastries, but I took a bag anyway, Vesta did too. And we also got those clippy, extendy thingies that let you pick up stuff without bending over. And we set off to fill our bags with trash.

We did it because Jeff and Marko are with the Bluff Park Neighborhood Association and they have this ongoing, cleanup where we live thing going on. So we helped out. Granted picking up trash isn’t as much fun as walking on the beach, but we live here and I know it wasn’t much and we’re not gonna do it everyday, but every little bit helps.

And you’d never believe the kinda shit we picked up, you know the kinda stuff people thoughtlessly just drop on the ground and walk away from when their out walking around. But that’s a story for a different day.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 181.

Here are Jay and Diamond. We only had a few seconds with them, not even time to get more than their names. But we learned they are awful gosh darned happy young people.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 182.

Vesta and I met Marlene and Staci in Bluff Park, on the sidewalk overlooking the beach below. It’s a great place to meet people, that sidewalk is. And the view of the beach is beyond gorgeous. But sadly, you can’t get your feet in the water when you’re seventy-five steps above it.

On another note, we thought we were safe from the rising seas caused by melting glaciers and the whole North Pole, because, you know, we’re seventy-five steps above the ocean. But I read on the interwebs yesterday, that’s it’s possible it could rise TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY-ONE FEET, because that’s how much higher it was before the poles froze.

On the plus side, I think. We’ll be dead by then. But Devon, maybe you should think about maybe moving to Denver.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 183.

We met Deanna Saturday evening last in Bluff Park. She’d set up a stand overlooking the beach, where she was selling bracelets. Pretty cool looking ones. And I wanted to take her photo right then and there, but we’d already photographed someone on our morning walk for one. And for two, I didn’t have a camera and although I’m liking more and more the photos Vesta gets from her iPhone, I decided to wait for the next day.

So, I told Deanna we’d be back tomorrow and then, for reasons I can’t excuse, we didn’t make it. So after smacking myself upside the head repeatedly, I vowed I’d be there next Saturday with bells on.

But, she was there last night. So I apologized for not being there when I said I would be, because I just hate it when Vesta and I go somewhere to meet someone and said someone is a no show.

So here she is now, más vale tarde que nunca. And how could you not love the butterflies in her hair?

Faces of Long Beach, Day 184. Jason Again, Sadly.

Found Dead on the Long Beach Pier, at 4:00 In the Morning.

“I’ll tell you how to remember my name,” he’d say, just think of the months, “July, August, September, October and November, J A S O N, that’s me, Jason.

He used to come into our record store in Belmont Shore, when he was a child. Well maybe a few years out of childhood, but a fifteen year old kid was a child to me. He told us that Vesta and our store changed his life. Vesta gave him a Hendrix record and that was it for him. The music.

He haunted the store. And he worshiped my son Steve and Steve’s friend Russ. They were older and all he wanted was to be like them. Cool, like them. I didn’t know that back then. I also didn’t know that he was kinda in love with Vesta, in a motherly or deep friendship way I like to think, but maybe there was more in his mind. But that’s okay, cuz I think he needed her in his life back then.

I didn’t know this back then, neither did Vesta.

We also didn’t know, that us closing the store would be such a trauma for him or that he’d miss the lady who owned the record store so much. And we might never have known, but one day in the middle of last April, Vesta and I went out on the pier during the middle of our evening walk and we saw Jason. Or rather, he saw us. We didn’t recognize him, because he didn’t look the same.

We’d just photographed somebody on the beach, so we weren’t looking for a face for our project, we just wanted a short rest, before the long walk home. There were more people than usual that evening, I don’t know why. And the atmosphere seemed festive, and again I don’t know why. Maybe it was because it was such a nice evening.

While we were on the pier, we saw Jason, because how could we miss him. He was so colorful. But I’d already photographed someone and though sometimes we did more than one person or couple in a day, two subjects were more work and meant that I had to get up an extra half hour early, because of the extra post. But again, he was so colorful and was staring right at us.

“I’m gonna ask him,” I said.

“I would,” Vesta said.

So we approached and as I was about to tell him of our project, he said, “Are you Ken and Vesta?”

“We are,” I said.

“I’m Jason,” he said.

I didn’t recognize him even after he told us his name. But Vesta did.

We must’ve spent an hour or so with him and he peppered us with questions. He wanted to know everything about us. And it was all about us for him. Not about himself, as it usually is when you meet new people or reconnect with someone. And when he was done asking about us. He asked about Tiffany and he was so happy to hear she was doing okay up in Portland. And I was dreading what I knew was coming and it came.

“And how’s Steve?”

“Covid took him about a month ago.” It was all I could say. And we started crying, Jason more than us.

And I’m crying right now. I do that sometimes, get up in the morning, sit at my desk and bawl. I don’t know why, maybe it’s age. Grieving is just so horrible.

Anyway, Jason told us he was homeless, though at the present time, he was doing okay. He was working at a church and the pastor was putting him up in a motel. And that surprised Vesta, because she used to see his posts on Facebook. Posts of him and his daughter out on the pier, having fun. She didn’t know about his divorce and that he wasn’t able to see his daughter, who he loved so much, anymore and that was almost as heartbreaking as me, having to tell him Steve had died.

Of course, I made photographs of him during our time with him and he wanted some of him and Vesta and I took them. And he told us how much Vesta had meant to him when he was a kid, so when we got home, I printed out one of the photos of him and Vesta, the one I posted on Facebook, back in April. And the next day, we went out on the pier and I gave it to him and it’s impossible to put into words how happy he was to get it.

A week or so later, he told us again how much that photograph meant to him, that he had it by his bed and that he looked at it everyday. And the way he talked about it, we got a sense that it reminded him of a happier time and that he wasn’t doing so well. He told us that he fished the pier. That he knew most of the fishermen who did. That he rode the bus to the pier almost everyday.

We saw him up there a couple times after that as we walked under the pier on our evening stroll. We shouted up and waved and one time he heard us and waved back, the other time he didn’t hear us. And then we didn’t see him anymore. Not until Tiffany came to visit in August.

She wanted to stop at a Starbucks on the way home from the airport, so we went to the one on Seventh and Redondo in Long Beach and while there, she asked us about Jason, wanting to know how we thought he was doing. And I said, pointing out the window, “Why don’t you ask him yourself.” And I got up, rapped on the window and Jason turned, his face lighting up when he saw me.

I motioned for him to come inside and he came around to the door, but was hesitant about coming in, like maybe he wasn’t supposed to. I saw the look, turned to the baristas, then back to Jason and said, “Do you want coffee?” and he came in and sat with us for about an hour, maybe longer.

He didn’t want coffee. But he did want conversation. He had a large pizza, which he said was for the homeless people who were living behind the Starbucks and I guessed that was why he was nervous about coming in, because he was hanging out with the homeless people. Or maybe even because he was living back there too. I didn’t know if he still was living in that motel room. And now I wish I would’ve asked. But I didn’t. I didn’t even think of it, till just now.

Then one day last week, we went out on the pier on our morning walk and Vesta spied a homeless man sleeping behind the little shack at the beginning of the pier. She didn’t say anything about it, because we see homeless people every morning and every evening. We know some of them, talk to many of them, they’re just a part of our lives.

She didn’t know it was Jason.

Not till last night.

Jason was found dead, next to that very spot at 4:00 yesterday morning. Just two and a half hours before we walked under where he’d died, alone on cold, cold morning. Just another homeless person.

Just another homeless man.

—— An Update——

We’re all Just Passing Thru.

Yesterday, Vesta and I went to a place called the Gaslamp, a pretty big bar on Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach, to celebrate Jason’s life with a whole heck of a lot of people who knew and now miss him. First of, if the Gaslamp would’ve been on Sunset in the 60’s or 70’s, like where the Troubadour or the Roxy are, it seems to me that it coulda rivaled them.

But it’s in Long Beach on PCH and the next Rocky Horror Picture Show, if there ever is one, isn’t gonna make its debut there and Neil and Elton and Linda and so many others aren’t ever gonna play there, but maybe, who knows.

Anyway, it seems like a great club and last night it had great band rock band, but I’m wondering what kinda club it is, like maybe it might be C & W one. I guess we’ll have to go back on another night and find out.

But last night it was a rock club, just like those two in Hollywood where Vesta and I spent so much time a lotta years ago. And last night, when we walked in, Trish, the lead singer in the band, shouted out, “McCain’s Records is in the house.”

It kinda made us feel good, like something we did so long ago mattered. But when I took in the crowd, at 4:00 on a Sunday, I realized that what we did so long ago never really mattered that much, because what really matters is how we interact with others, like how the way Jason interacted with others, because we’re all just passing thru. And what if John Lennon was wrong. What if God is more than just a concept.

If there’s a God, She put us here because She loves us. At least that’s what they say. She didn’t make us to hate. She didn’t make us to look down on others. She didn’t make us to hoard what we can, while others have nothing. She made us to love one another, like she loves us. At least that’s what they say.

And if there is a God, Jason is in her arms right now, a place most of us will never be. At least that’s what they say. You know the Ten Commandments and all. And all of those religions out there that tell us to love our brothers and sisters.

We don’t do that.

But Jason did.

We get hundred dollar hair cuts, buy fancy clothes, five hundred dollar shoes, watches that play music and lots and lots of other stuff and we hoard it and lord it over others, like we’re special. And we find reasons to not like and even hate others, because they’re different.

Jason was different. He died with nothing.

Yet that wanna be, maybe is, I don’t yet rock club was packed to the rafters with souls he’d touched during his too short lifetime.

Jason was different. He died with nothing. Jesus was different too. He died with nothing too. And don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing Jason to Jesus, though if I were, I guess I’d have to say he’s a heck of a lot closer to the kind of human being God wants us to be, than you or me.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 185.

Vesta and I were headed for the showers, behind that restaurant on the sand with those awfully high prices, because we like to wash the sand off our feet, before taking those seventy-five steps up from the beach, toward home.

But all four shower heads were running, washing over a heap a clothes. Our first thought was that some homeless guy was doing his laundry, which is okay with us, because most homeless people, except maybe the ones on meth, are pretty reasonable.

So, I asked the guy, a remarkable physically fit young man named Brian, to move his clothes and he smiled and did.

Then, feet clean, I looked him over and realized, he wasn’t homeless, so maybe he was a traveler. And traveler’s have a special place in our hearts. But before I could ask, he asked us to watch his clothes, while he went to get his car. So not a traveler, cuz travelers don’t have cars.

We watched him jog to parking lot, get in a car, and proceed to drive it onto the cement walkway, which, as far as the cops are concerned, a real big no no. Then, when he got close, one of the beach patrol clean up guys turns his overhead lights on as he sorta blocks this guy’s path.

We didn’t hear the conversation, but from what we saw, I imagine it went something like this:

Official beach patrol person: You can’t be driving on the walkway.

Not a homeless or traveler guy: Oh, don’t worry, I’ll be gone in a second, just gotta get my clothes.

Official beach patrol person, looking over at me and Vesta, by the showers raining down on his heap of clothes, then trying to calm himself: You can’t do that!

Not a homeless or traveler guy: Really? Sorry? I’ll go get them right out of there.

Then he turns his car from the cement walking path and drives onto the cement slab that stupidly expensive restaurant shares with the beach restrooms, right on over to the shower, where he proceeds to wash off the hood of his SUV, before loading the clothes into the back of the car.

And by this time, I am completely fascinated by this individual, because he is obviously—someone like me, or at least someone like I used to be and who I’m striving to be again—a person who believes that “Rules were made for other people.”

I know why I’m like that, it’s the way my dad taught me to be: He was a man who genuinely believed, or who acted like he genuinely believed, they painted curbs red all over the country, so he’d always have a place to park. Rules be damned, because they were mostly made by little people with failed lives.

He also taught me, and I swear Bob Dylan must have stolen this concept from him and that is, “Everything is legal as long as you don’t get caught.”

I lived by those concepts for a long, long time. Now, not so much. I don’t why. Maybe it’s just because it’s easier to go along to get along.

Anyway, enough about me and back to not a homeless and not a traveler guy. I told him I needed to make his picture and to know his story. And he pointed to a beach side high rise, the one where Vesta and I had that penthouse view for a couple years when we were so much younger. So, he wasn’t poor.

Turns out that he’s a puppet maker and puppeteer, some kind of physical fitness teacher or coach, maybe a musician of some kind too, certainly a philosopher of some kind as well. and a very damned interesting person. Who also performs on cruse ships, which is maybe the best job in the world, probably second only to owning a bar.

So why was he washing his clothes in the beach showers. Answer: He just wanted to feel like a hippy for a day.

His name is Brian and he has dystonia and maybe that’s why he’s got just about the best attitude on life I’ve ever encountered in another human being.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 186.

I Am Not too Old.

Here is Isabel who took a thousand dollars from me for a phone the day before yesterday. Well, I got a case and the plugie-in-thingie along with the deal. And that was kind of a big deal for me, because I got my last phone when I was on the lam with Devon and Vesta six years ago.

I needed a burner and I got one for seventy-five bucks from Metro PCs. And I’ve been using it ever since. I’ve got six contacts in it along with my Spanish lessons and some music. It still makes and receives phone calls just fine, but the volume lever needs some fiddling with to make it work.

And sure the camera isn’t great, but I’ve never taken a picture with it, cuz I’ve got a half dozen, real cameras, because I’m like a photographer.

But I don’t walk with a phone. It sits by my bedside day and night, never going anywhere, so one could probably make the case that I really didn’t need an upgrade.

But, Vesta and I are starting a new year long project beginning on December 14. Fourteen people a day with the iPhone 14. Yep, almost similar to the one person at the Dawn’s Early Light we did for a thousand and one days in Reno, just fourteen times more people. Plus, there’s another twist. We’re also going to photograph the people with a real camera and and compare the photos.

But unlike that Reno project, where we went out everyday, we know that a couple photos of fourteen strangers everyday will be taxing, so we’re only going to do it Monday thru Thursday, which will give us three days off, so that we can do real work.

And to do this project, we needed an iPhone 14. Vesta’s got an iPhone 11 and I’ve got my two hundred and twelve year old burner phone (in phone years). So I get the new one.

And that’s where Isabel comes in. I checked out Amazon and Apple and started calling around and when I got a hold of her at the Metro by T-Mobile store near us, I new we were getting the phone from her. She answered all my question with a smile in her voice and she didn’t make fun of my project like some others did.

In fact, one person close to me (not Vesta) said that I WAS TOO OLD TO DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS.

Well, fuck me and bite me in the ass. It’s not like I’m gonna go out and climb Mt. Everest. It’s taking pictures of people for crying out loud.

So, cuz Isabel was so personable on the phone, we went to her store and she was even more personable in person and fun too. So much so that I almost didn’t miss that thousand bucks.

PS. But I did miss it. Just a little

Faces of Long Beach, Day 187.

Vesta and I were in Costco, when I heard a woman’s voice behind me saying, “The price just has to come down.” And dummy me thought she was talking about the price of the eggs I was looking at.

But she was talking about housing prices. So, of course I had to tell her I started taking these real estate classes, back when all you had to do was stand on a busy corner and shout out you were a real estate agent and people wanted to throw money at you.

And now, three or so months later, interest rates are though the roof and seem to be going higher and it looks like the price of homes is gonna start dropping. I heard on the news in the car that some say by 15% real soon.

Anyway, Wamu is a school bus driver and sadly I don’t have any good school bus driver stories. Well, maybe a bus driver one.

When I was a kid I used to watch the Honeymooners with my mom. And there was one where Ralph saw a robbery and the robbers figured out where the cop’s witness lived and they came to Ralph and Alice’s apartment with a gun.

They left Alice in the living room, went into the bedroom with Ralph to rough him up. Poor Alice (this was before Ralph sent her to the moon) was terrified as she listened to the commotion coming from the bedroom.

Then there’s quiet.

And Ralph comes out of the bedroom in his bus driver’s uniform, had askew.

“Oh, Ralph,” Alice said. “I was so worried.”

“About what?

“There was so much noise, I thought those men were killing you.”

“Jeez, I don’t know what you were afraid of.”

“You, I was worried about you.”

“You shoulda been afraid for them, not me!”

“I didn’t know you were such a fighter.”

“Heck,” and Ralph put on his best Jackie Gleason smile, “I drive a bus in New York.”

At least that’s the way I remember it, back when I saw it, all those years ago, the first time it was ever aired.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 188.

Is There Anybody Who Doesn’t Love an Edsel.

I grew up in Lakewood, California. And on the corner of Woodruff and South there was a shopping center called Dutch Village and the Cole’s Market there had a facsimile of an old time Dutch windmill around the entrance. Kinda silly now, looking back, but back then it was okay.

On South Street, on the northeast corner, behind Cole’s was an abandoned two story house, with boarded windows. And past that house there were modern (well for the fifties) houses galore, streets and blocks full of them.

And as kids, we pulled those boards off and dared each other to climb through those windows and to go into the HAUNTED HOUSE. And, of course, we did. Lots of times. Then one day in late 1957 as I crawled out of one of the bedroom windows of that house, I saw it. A brand spanking new, right off the assembly line Edsel and it was glorious.

There is was right in front of me and my friends. The future. But alas, we were wrong. The Edsel fissiled, because PEOPLE ARE STUPID. What in the world did they want? How could you not wanna drive around town in one of these things.

How could anybody not love an Edsel?

Flash forward to the day before yesterday and can you believe what Vesta and I saw parked on our street. Yep, an Edsel. Somebody actually owns one and drives it around like an ordinary car.

I might not have a person to post today, because we didn’t go out last night, but I’ve got something better, I’ve got a photo of an Edsel.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 189.

Because it was overcast yesterday, Vesta and I decided to go out and maybe get some photos of the trees we photographed five or six years ago in the little parklike area at the base of the Belmont Pier.

So we walked on down there and to our chagrin, THEY’RE GONE. We knew the indoor Olympic Pool had been raised and a new outdoor one is there instead. And the parking lot is bigger, and that there’s a new, short cement pathway there. And there’s a new gym there.

But we’d sorta overlooked the fact that those trees we loved aren’t there anymore, killed because of progress. Not until yesterday, when we went there to photograph them. And we’d passed that spot at least fifty times since we’ve been back in Long Beach.

Anyway, just before we got to the missing trees, we met Carla, Chris and Carissa from Cerritos, who were walking our cement walk and enjoying our beach. And as my haiku above implies, they are family.

Carla is twenty-seven, Carissa is fifteen and I don’t know how old Chris is, but like in the photo, he’s in the middle. A large age difference, to be sure, but they’re close and close among brothers and sisters is a good thing, because if you can’t count on your brothers and sisters, who can you count on.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 190.

This is Maryanne, who we met in Bluff Park. She was wearing skates in the grass, waving a Guamanian flag back and forth. Why, we didn’t get, though she did allow us to take her picture, so we did.

Below, you can see her with the flag. And now you know as much about her as we do.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 191.

Three Spidermen.

Vesta and I met these Spidey people r last night. And since I was wearing almost the same shoes as the one on the middle, I had to take their photograph. My Vans were black and grey check, but I like the white and black check ones too and actually, they’re next on my list.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 192.

A Stoic Bird.

We were on the pier, visiting the spot where our friend Jason passed away, and this bird was sitting on the rail, near the spot. There was just something about his stoic look that made me want to photograph him.

Also, he wasn’t afraid of me. He let me get right up next to him with the camera.

Faces of Long Beach, Day 200.

Archie, the Tesla Dog.

Vesta and I are closing out 2022 with the face of a dog. We came across Archie as he was sitting in his master’s Tesla, which was parked in front of Saint & Second, a restaurant on the corner of Second Street and St. Joseph in Belmont Shore. And that also happens to be the location of that rock and blues Record Store of yesteryear, McCain’s Records.

Yep, our record store was turned into a restaurant, but on the bright said, Craig, the guy who bought out our lease, was a nice man and gave us a fair deal. And truth be told, we were looking to move on.

Anyway, back to Archie. When we first saw him we thought maybe someone should break the window of that Tesla and free that poor animal. Because, it’s against the law, you know, to lock up a dog, cat or even a child in a car as you go and eat in a nice restaurant. Really, it is. And my inclination was to call 911 and report the bastard Tesla owner, but I’m not a snitch. A window breaker maybe, but not a snitch.

But then I looked at the screen lighting up Archie’s face and I laughed. And then I took this picture. Well, actually it wasn’t my idea to take the picture. It was Vesta’s. But I get some of the credit, it was my camera, after all. And I’m the one who pushed the shutter button. Still, it was her idea.

I made the Art, but she was the brains behind it