Tales of Two Cities

Dancing Duo

My sister, Gery, and her husband, Bob, currently have two major passions:  travel and dancing.  

Of course, they set up wonderfully complex treasure hunts for the youngsters in their extended family and also write children's books.  But dancing has been a passion for quite a few years now.

During their recent visit with us they posed for some dancing shots in my living room "studio."

And so I present:  The dancing Ruddicks.

I got quite a few cute shots of them, but post production will have to wait until our return from Paris.  I've got an animoto video in the works too, so stay tuned.

Capt'n Sharktooth's Treasure

A most amazing thing happened recently.

My sister, Gery, and her husband, Bob, were in California when they came upon rumors of pirate treasure hidden in the town where Emily and her parents live.

Gery and Bob were so excited that they decided to try to determine the exact location of the treasure.  They quickly learned of an extensive library of pirate lore owned by Dermit McDermit, an ancient hermit who lived in a house called Longshadow located high on a cliff above  crashing ocean waves. Perhaps they could find some information in the library.

There was a slight problem, though.  McDermit does not like visitors. Not only that, but reaching his house required a perilous climb up a long ladder hanging over the cliff.  Once there, Gery and Bob could not be sure that they would even be able to visit McDermit's library.  Happily, persistence and bribes of chocolate chip and sugar cookies convinced McDermit to open his door to them for the two visits it took them to find what they were looking for.

They were really surprised when they learned that the treasure was buried near Emily's house!!

Alas, their only clue was a piece of paper with some symbols on it, a message from Captain Sharktooth to his crew and a lot of blank space.  No hint of where to find the Treasure Map could be seen.

There was nothing for it.  To find the treasure, Gery and Bob would have to leave California and travel across the country to Massachusetts and consult with Emily.  If Emily could find the treasure it would be hers to keep.

Together Gery, Bob and Emily puzzled over the piece of paper.  After analysis and a lot of thought, Emily concluded that the message must be in invisible writing.  

That seemed like a real possibility so the next question was how to make the writing visible (assuming it was there, of course).

Emily suggested that using water might work.  Alas, although she carefully applied water to the paper, no writing appeared.

More thinking was necessary.  After consulting with everyone handy (her grandparents, her mother, and of course, Gery and Bob), Emily decided to try heat.  Her mother had an iron and we all agreed that that would be a good way to test the heat theory.  A candle flame would have been fun, but it might have burned up the clue!

Grandma Camera (that would be me) was given the task of applying the hot iron to the paper.  At first it looked as though the result would be the same as it had been with water.  Emily was disappointed, but she decided we should keep trying.  Gradually, marks began to appear on the paper and Emily knew that the message really was there.

This is the clue she discovered:  "Go to the whale rock near the fin of the shark and the baby whale rock.  Lie on the whale rock and peer off the front.  White wraps the map." 

We all scratched our heads.  Where was the whale rock?  While the rest of us were puzzling over the clue, Emily  remembered a piece of wood in the shape of a shark fin and she knew where to find The Treasure Map!

Lying on the big whale rock, she  peered over the edge.  Tucked almost entirely under the rock almost completely hidden by undergrowth was something wrapped in birch bark.  Inside was a beautiful map with lots of clues written on it.  Emily had found The Treasure Map.

Now the hard work began.  Emily would have to figure out each clue in order to find her way to the treasure.  It is a good thing that Emily knows the yard around her house well. 

It was not easy.  The clues were cryptic.  Emily had to run along a stone wall and find the small pond in a gray rock.  She had to tiptoe up to a fairy circle and twirl around three times inside it.  She had to follow the curve of white rocks to find the scary, dancing skeletons.  She had to sneak up and whisper a secret in the ear of a winged, gray monster.  (This one was really scary so Uncle Bob agreed to do the deed.)  She had to leave some coins in the jaws of the giant orange monster that lives in the black cave.

If you look carefully at the picture of the map, you can see all of the clues she had to solve.  

It was hard to figure out all of the clues, but Emily did it.  And, at last, she followed the trail of skeleton hands to X marks the spot. 

No one could see the treasure, but Emily knew it was there.  She searched through the bushes and ferns and, sure enough, nestled in the crook of a tree was a large, brown, ancient treasure  chest.

I found it, said Emily in amazement.  And so she had.

The Treasure Chest, full of wondrous treasures, was hers.

Click here to see a few more pictures of the hunt.

Thank you Aunt Gery and Uncle Bob. You gave Emily the gift of a lifetime, just as you gave my children such a gift so many years ago. 

Of Time Travel and Parallel Universes, Bakeries and Mayors

The following was written by Charles to my sister and her husband today.

"I (Grandpa) am out here in Princeton alone today while Virginia finishes up her photography class.  A little while ago Emily said she was going to go into a parallel universe.  The portal she uses is a low coffee table in front of the couch under which she can just slither.  I asked her to tell me all about it when she came back.  She said she would take notes and got a pencil and paper to take with her.  After she slithered under the table we could no longer see or hear each other, of course (in fact she kept completely quiet and was obviously writing something on her paper).  When she came back she gave me the paper which had the words "dog" "clock" "Emily" "2008" and "play-doh."  She told me it was a list of things she saw in the parallel universe and explained to me that in that universe it was 2008 while in ours it is 2009.  After a short discussion she explained to me that when one travels from one universe to another one also does "time travel".  I asked her if she was only four in the parallel universe.  She looked perplexed for a moment (she is very proud of being five) and came up with the perfect explanation.  "This is a special kind of time travel where I am still five and the TV set shows the same movies at the same time" (I paraphrase)."

While Grandpa and Emily were engaged in time travel, I was finishing up a week-long course in documentary and street photography taught by B.D. Colen, a documentary photographer and Pulitzer prize winning writer.  My final project had me on my feet yesterday for ten hours straight in an un-airconditioned kitchen at a small, boutique bakery in Brookline, Massachusetts.  Today's job was to cull the over 800 photographs I took down to 20 that tell a story.  For various reasons, I have not yet completed my project, but I will provide a link when it gets done.


Here is a street photo I took on Wednesday while spending the afternoon wandering around Copley Square with my camera in the 95 degree heat. My assignment was to photograph people and to shoot from within twelve feet of my subjects.  I haven't a clue who these women are or what they were talking about, but I was fascinated by the scene.

Below is a copy of B.D.'s 16 plus year old cat who came by the back door of the bakery while I was there yesterday.  Obviously, he was checking to be sure I was working and not sitting around eating the wonderful pastries that the amazing, young bakers were producing.  Meet Fluff, the Mayor of Monmouth St., as seen through the screen door than opens onto the alley behind the store.

 

 

Yay Wellesley!

Got an email today from Sally Katz, the secretary  of the Wellesley Club of France.  It contained this link to this year's Forbes list of America's best colleges.  I'm not surprised that Wellesley College placed so high, but I am shocked that West Point came in first. 

Meaningless statistics:  In my and Charles' families there are two Wellesley grads and 5 West Pointers over 5 generations.  In fact, in the generations before mine, none of the women in my family attended college. Charles' mother and aunt went to the University of Utah and spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris.  So far as I know, they were the first women in their families to go to college.

Actually, the statistics may not be so meaningless.  There is probably some fodder for sociological commentary in there someplace. 

I am only qualified to say that Wellesley is a wonderful school and I am glad that my parents were willing to sacrifice to help me go there.

This is such fun!!

Be sure you have your sound on to get the full impact of this Animoto short video called "The Moods of Miss Em."

Happy Birthday!!

Just for Fun

Multiple Emilies.

I obviously have too much time on my hands.

A Photographer's Dilemma

Many years ago I took this photograph of our daughter.  She had been playing next door and her friend had been mean to her.  Dirty and tearful, Elizabeth climbed over the stone wall that separated our yards and ran towards her mother.

In those days, if I used a camera, it was to take aviation photographs for magazine articles I was working on.  I didn't do much in the way of family photography.  That was Charles' domain.

That day, for reasons I don't remember,  I had Charles' Pentax in my hands.  Instead of immediately giving my daughter the comfort she needed, I raised the camera to my eye and took this shot.  Almost 40 years later, she has not completely forgiven me.

With Elizabeth, it was a chance occurrence, not something that I did with any frequency.  In fact, I'm pretty certain I have never taken a picture of her against her will since.  It is hard for me not to love this picture - it caught a quintessential childhood moment. At the same time, my daughter's reaction gives me cause to think hard about  how far I am willing to go for a shot. 

In recent years I  have, on occasion, been so compelled to photograph someone that, even knowing that I was making my subject uncomfortable, I couldn't stop. After this happened a couple of times,  I began exerting more self control.  Now, if I feel a strong compulsion to take more than a passing photograph of someone, I ask and try to arrange a shoot.  This has led to some wonderful experiences and some of my best photographs.

With Miss Em, I learned early to ask her permission before taking her picture, but on occasion I still find myself pushing it one or two shots too far. Usually, she just turns her back (sometimes incredibly subtly and sometimes not!).  Other times she gives me a look that reminds me a lot of her mother's glare that day 40 years go.

And darn it,  sometimes those are the captures I love best. This one, taken when she was three or so, is one of my favorites.  It was the last picture of her I took that day and her look let me know that it was one too many.

This past Friday, our last day with her until we return from Paris on April 30, she grumbled at one point, "Why are you always taking pictures of me?"  That is both an easy and hard question for me to answer.

For now, dearest Em, my answer to you is that in the month I am away, those pictures will help keep me close to you.  Thank you.    You've been a trooper. 

But I know that sometimes my addiction distances me from you (as it does from much of life) and maybe that isn't good.  So, I am promising myself to do better to be present for you when you really need me and not hidden, however briefly,  behind the camera. Maybe you and your Mom are right.  Where loved ones are concerned, being present in the moment is more important than recording it. 

Miss Em

Emily started taking gymnastics last fall.  Her regular class is on Saturday morning so we had not had the opportunity to see the gym or visited her class until recently.  In February,when she had a makeup class scheduled for a Friday, our regular babysitting day, we jumped at the chance to see her in action.

 It was great fun watching her and the other kids go from station to station working on various moves under the watchful eyes, and with the assistance of, their teacher.  Forward rolls, backward rolls, balance bar (just a few feet off the ground), hand stands (with feet against the wall), other strength building exercises, routines to teach the fine points of form and dismounts, and, of course,  the trampoline.  I took a ridiculous number of photographs of Emily, despite the fact I wasn't allowed into the gym and the lighting was poor.  I am a proud grandmother after all!  The photo above is a composite of Em's turn bouncing on the trampoline.

  Em had another makeup session this past Friday and we eagerly joined her and her mother.  This time I decided to just watch instead of doing my photography thing.   Still, I couldn't resist snapping a few pictures.  Here is one taken in the waiting area just before class began.

Don't you wish that you could have half of the energy of a 4 1/2 year old?

There's No Place Like Home

Speaking of talent and persistence, Elizabeth certainly showed her mettle while she and Emily were staying with us last week waiting for power to be restored to their home.

Elizabeth needed to produce a video lasting 30 to 60 seconds for one of her on-line classes.  It had to be either an ad or a public service announcement.  Earlier work had to be ditched because the stars in her initial concept, a cat food commercial, were at her house and our cats were definitely not star material.  In fact, they were in semi-permanent hiding for most of the time Miss Em stayed with us.

Exiled to our home in Boston, Elizabeth started the assignment all over again from scratch. First she needed to conceive of a coherent idea.  Then she had to make it happen.  I was privileged to watch the process (and to be one of the stars of the production!)

First Elizabeth came up with a vision.  Although she told us what it was, I couldn't visualize it in its final form.

Once she had her vision firmly in her mind,  "filming" began.  Some takes weren't quite what she wanted (too dark, framing poor), so she thought through the problem and tried again. With hours to go before her assignment was due, she had to find a charger for her video camera battery, which meant a lot of phone calls and a subway ride to Coolidge Corner.

In the end, she produced a very personal video lasting just under 60 seconds.  As you will see, it has a Christmas theme and it is something our family will treasure. Watch it here.  Be sure to see it through to the end where there is a serendipitous moment that will make you smile.

Vision, perserverance, flexibility and a touch of serendipity.  Can't beat it.  I am so proud of my daughter.