Don't Bother Me

 I have decided that I don't want to be bothered.

I often feel overwhelmed by the endless stream of spam e-mails (usually more than 200 each day, many of them from porn sites or advising me how to 'make it harder and longer.') I don't frequent porn sites, and I don't have anything to make 'harder and longer.' I also am not interested in online gambling, free spins or meeting a 'hot' Asian, Ukrainian or Russian woman. Many of the spam e-mails are sent two or three times in the same batch. I delete everything, but I am tired of this constant barrage.

And stop bothering me with calls from someone with 'cardmember services' offering to lower my interest rate. News flash: I don't pay interest on credit cards. And let's not forget 'Amy' or whoever is calling to let me know that the warranty on my car has expired. And the helpful caller from DirecTV informing me that my account qualifies for a 50 percent discount. Great! How about simply cutting my bill in half and stop calling me? I know these calls are all scams.

Add to these interruptions the seemingly endless calls from my healthcare providers. The most recent one was from a pharmacy technician with some vague message about pre-authorization of a medication. After four phone calls and close to 20 minutes on hold, I finally was informed that an eye medication had been approved. Normally I receive a letter with this information. This time I wasted time trying to return a phone call about a non-issue.

If I were younger and without a couple of medical issues that require visits to specialists, I would seriously consider moving someplace off the beaten path and without Internet service. Seriously! The constant bombardment by people wanting my money -- 99 percent of them scammers -- is overwhelming at times. 

Snail mail is not exempt from the barrage of letters seeking 'emergency' donations, either. I once donated to Mercy Corps some 25 to 30 years ago, or longer. I still get regular letters asking for donations for some emergency situation or other. The same goes for the Sierra Club. If I don't respond to the first, oh, 30 or 40 letters you send me, it is highly unlikely that I will suddenly decide to send a donation. How about Yellowstone Forever, a non-profit that funds projects in America's first national park? Last year I received a letter asking me to use the enclosed response forms to send a donation in both April and May. I guess one donation isn't enough. The group repeated this tactic a second time. Both appeals went straight into the recycling bin.

The Albuquerque PBS station is another that wastes donor dollars on monthly requests for money. Yesterday's mail brought not one, but two appeals for funds. One was a membership renewal, which I tossed into the recycling bin. I appreciate PBS, but I give an annual amount and don't appreciate the monthly duns for an additional 'gift.'

For the past couple of years the only thing I watch in real time on television is local and national news. Everything else gets recorded, so I can fast forward through the endless, inane commercials.

Non-profit organizations should spend their donors' contributions on the things they allegedly do for the community or the world. Stop sending me endless supplies of blank greeting cards, return address labels and calendars. I don't want, and I don't need, those things. I have a supply of address labels that will last two lifetimes. I have dozens of greeting cards and use perhaps one each year. I make my own calendars.

So just stop bothering me! If I decide to make a donation, I will. I don't need to be flooded with requests for still more money. I don't need note cards or address labels or calendars. Just go away!

Still Dreaming. Still Exploring. Still On the Road.

I have done quite a bit of traveling since retiring -- except for 2020, of course, when the entire world ground to a halt due to the pandemic.

I fulfilled a lifelong dream of visiting Egypt and Greece. I have watched the sun set over the Sahara Desert while I sat atop a camel. I got to see the rare, and elusive, Ethiopian wolf. I have photographed jaguars in Brazil's Pantanal, leopards, cheetahs and lions in Africa, grizzly bears in Alaska and polar bears in far northern Canada. I walked part of the Camino de Santiago in Spain. I viewed Paris from the top of the Eiffel Tower. I took part in an in-depth experience to learn about the Holocaust and I did a service project at Auschwitz. I sat on the dusty ground of Botswana's Kalahari Desert as meerkats crawled over me. I wandered through a few of the 300 rooms in the famed 'Downton Abbey' (Highclere Castle). I visited Colombia,

Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Cuba, Grand Teton, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Olympic, Joshua Tree and Glacier national parks. 

When I worked in Moscow (Russia) for 3-1/2 months, I spent weekends exploring that ancient city. I was amazed at the beauty, crumbling though it is, of St. Peterburg. I took my daughter to visit the Siberian city from which I had adopted her.

I have watched in stunned silence the fluid beauty of a cheetah as it chased a gazelle, and at the power of a leopard as it dragged an antelope up a tree. Mu heart pounded as an elephant mock-charged the vehicle in which I was sitting.

I gazed upon and spent time exploring the ancient ruins of Petra in Jordan. I stood atop the ancient Israeli fortress at Masada, and I walked through the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, stood before the Western (or Wailing) Wall in the old city of Jerusalem, and visited the Church of the Nativity in the Arab-occupied city of Bethlehem. I went hiking in Quebec and in New Zealand's South Island. I photographed tigers in India and hiked (and bicycled) in Ireland. I explored the Parthenon where it sits atop the acropolis in Athens, a place it has occupied for 3000 years. I wandered the streets of Moscow (back when the country wasn't carrying out unjustified attacks on Ukraine) when I lived and worked there.

But there are still so many places on my travel wish list: Italy. Switzerland. England (again). Ireland (again). France (again). Scandinavia. Sicily, Germany, Portugal, the Baltic countries, Australia, Scotland (again). I guess my trip on the TransSiberian Railway will have to wait, given Russia's ongoing and unwarranted war on Ukraine.

Not many Asian countries appeal to me, although I hear that Japan and Vietnam are both wonderful and beautiful countries.

I used to work with a man who was proud of the fact he had never traveled outside his native Texas. How sad it must be to be so provincial when there are so very many wonderful sights and countries to be explored. 

I will continue to travel for as long as I am physically able to do so. The world has so many amazing places, sights and animals to discover. I don't want to miss any of them. I don't want to miss the memories they will bring.

I Don't Like America

That's right. I no longer like America.

More precisely, I don't like what America has become. And I don't like what America is becoming.

I don't like the attacks on our voting rights, on our rights as women to retain control of our own bodies, or on the rights of our LGBTQ brethren. I also don't like the attacks on our ability to decide what we want to read. Book banning and book burning are hallmarks of the Hitler regime in the 1930s and 1940s. They should never be part of America in the 2020s.

I don't like attempts to turn America into a 'Christian' country. America has never been a Christian country, despite what the evangelicals claim. America was founded as a nation in which everyone is free to practice their own religion, or no religion at all. America should never be a theocracy. 

There is supposed to be separation of church and state, but that distinction has gone out the window, particularly after the Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn Roe v Wade. I don't like all the pandering to the so-called evangelicals in this country, whose words and actions are anything but Christlike. People are free to believe whatever they choose to believe in. But they should never be free to impose their beliefs on others or to pass legislation based on their religious belie

I don't like the growing sense of division among Americans. I don't like the hatred among people who used to be friends and family members. I don't like the fact that too many Americans are willing to accept mass murders, especially of school children, all in the name of the Second Amendment. I don't like the power and influence corporations hold over our elected officials. I don't like the fact that certain Republican politicians are using illegal migrants as pawns, flying or driving them all over the country in an attempt to score political points with their 'base.'

I don't like the fact that millions of Americans struggle to pay rent and buy groceries while the nation's handful of billionaires gets more wealthy by the day. And I don't like the price gouging that is going on, with corporations raking in record profits while ordinary citizens struggle.

I don't like the fact that Republicans believe they are the only true patriots in this country, or that they have usurped the American flag. True patriots don't attempt to overturn a legal election, or threaten to hang the vice-president when he refused to do their bidding. 

I don’t like the fact that calm, rational discourse on hot button topics no longer exists. Discussions have become nothing but threats, personal attacks and name-calling.

I don't like greed on any level, whether individual or corporate. I don't like the hatred and discrimination and all the other negatives that seem to have overtaken our country.

I realize that the idealized view of the America of the 1950s and 1960s was just that -- idealized. Women worked only in the home. They were subservient to the men in their lives. Minorities had no rights. So life wasn’t at all as portrayed. But people still turned out to help their neighbors, to visit each other when someone was sick or old or needed help. Sadly, those acts of compassion have become so rare that they often make the news. Now it's all about greed, about getting your share and someone else's, too.

America's rection to the covid-19 pandemic was a real eye-opener, and not in a good way. Refusing to wear a mask or to be vaccinated or even to practice something as simple as social distancing  -- simple steps to protect ourselves and those around us -- were commonplace.

I don't like what this country has become. And I don't like what far too many Americans have become.

I still love my country. But as it now exists, I don't like it.

Capturing Beauty. Telling Stories. Making Memories.

I am just back from a nearly 3-week trip to Alaska.

This wasn't a photography trip, but I took two cameras and two lenses with me anyway. And I did a lot of photography. I have completed a preliminary downloading, reviewing and editing the images.

What has occurred to me as I review these images -- all 2,500+ of them -- is that each image can serve a different purpose. Some images serve to document a place, animal or event.

Others tell a story, but not in words. Each person who views an image can create his/her unique story about the photograph. What story does this image of a mother brown bear and her young cubs tell?

Some images are portraits, whether of an animal, a person or a beautiful place. This portrait of an old bull elephant in Namibia is one of my favorites. This old bull, about whom i wrote a previous blog post, looked directly at me. I sensed a great sadness in his eyes, as if he were telling me goodbye. That's the story I envisioned as we connected on a non-verbal level..
 

A photo can present the broad perspective of a landscape or the details of an animal's eyes. And they all can serve to bring back the memory of where/when/with whom I took the photo. I will always remember the surprise and thrill of seeing this mother cheetah peering at us inside the safari vehicle as she sat atop the vehicle's spare tire on the back.

Sometimes a scene is so beautiful and awe-inspiring that it takes my breath away. This has happened while I stood amid the grandeur of some of 

America’s national parks. No photograph can truly capture the magnificence as seen by my eyes, but it can certainly bring back the feelings I had as I witnessed natures magnificent creations

That's one of the things I love about photography. It's both an art and a science. It's much like other art forms, where the message is open to interpretation. It allows both the photographer and the viewer to see the scene in his or her unique way. And what I see or like in a photograph may not be what another person or photographer sees. Have five photographers photograph the same thing, and you're likely to get five different interpretations of the subject.

It's the 'eye' of the photographer that determines what to capture and how the photographer sees the scene. And it's the science of using the camera's capabilities to compose and to capture the image in the way the photographer envisions it. People sometimes ask what kind of camera I use, because they like my images and think if they have the same kind of camera (I shoot with Canon mirrorless cameras) they, too, can take good pictures. I wish it were that simple. Both the photographer and the equipment are necessary.

The bottom line is this: photography allows me to express my creative side. It allows those who view my photographs to experience places and things they may never have the opportunity to see in person. And I am very grateful that digital photography allows me to share my work.

Photography also can be a source of frustration and challenge, especially when dealing with potentially uncooperative wildlife or difficult weather.

But that is a small price to pay for the pleasure it brings me. Photography always challenges me to do better. And nothing else can preserve the memories of what I have seen in quite the same way.

Be Kind. Pass It On.

Today I intended to write about the terrorist attacks on the United States that occurred on this date 21 years ago.

I have written about these attacks and my experiences as a federal government employee at that time, several times previously. So now I want to write about something different, something more hopeful.

I have been away for nearly three weeks, and I needed to go grocery shopping. My refrigerator was empty. So I went to the store early this morning, did my shopping and was standing in line waiting to check out. Another woman brought her cart and got in line just behind me. She appeared to be considerably older than I am, and she had only a few items in her cart. So I let her go ahead of me. We started chatting, and she told me she had her blind and deaf dog in her car. I wasn’t too worried about that, because the temperature was only 68°. I don't like the idea of leaving a dog alone in a vehicle, but at least the temperature wasn't a danger. After she finished paying for her groceries, and I was putting mine on the conveyor belt, she asked twice whether I needed help getting my groceries into my car. I thanked her for her offer, but told her I could handle the groceries myself.

This brief exchange of pleasantries reminded me that acts of kindness can create a tidal wave of kindness if the recipients will pass on the kind acts that happened to them. This is exactly what happened in the grocery store this morning.

On one of my flights yesterday, a flight attendant asked passengers who did not have a tight connection to their next flight to remain seated so those who did could get off the plane more quickly. Many people, including me, remained seated so others could rush to their next flights. I had been in that position before, when I had just minutes to make my flight, and I appreciated being allowed to exit the aircraft more quickly. I was pleasantly surprised by the number of people who remained in their seats. My seat mate thanked me, as did another woman who had just minutes to make her flight. She made a point of thanking several people who remained seated. 

I remember that after the attacks of 9/11, people came together, not just in America, but around the world. Even countries with which the US has often been at odds expressed their solidarity with the American people and their suffering. Citizens of other countries lined up outside American embassies to sign books of condolence. The queen of England, the late Queen Elizabeth II, broke a 600-year-old tradition when she asked that the ceremonial music normally played during the changing of the guard outside Buckingham Palace be changed to the national anthem of the US.

The world is so full of hatred and evil these days, so making a small act of kindness, with no expectation of anything in return, can have an immense effect. I have three T-shirts that say 'Be Kind to Everyone.' I think this message is one we should all take to heart.

Maybe, just maybe, if we make a real effort to be kind to everyone, we can make this sad world just a little bit nicer.