Our Sweet Jasmine

It has been one week now. Our little Jasmine was beginning to suffer too much and we had to let her go. My friend Shannon knew Jasmine well and she has written a beautiful tribute to Jasmine in a way that I cannot find words to do. If you have time please read Shannon's tribute: Fly Free, Jazzy!.

We were unable to provide a clean enough air environment - it was filled with home cleaning products entering our air space from neighboring apartments. She was a healthy, robust girl - but she couldn't breathe the contaminated air we're making around us. I'm angry, I'm sad, I could rant about how stupid we human beings are. But at the same time, I feel sorry for all the pain and sorrow that will come to us from our lack of awareness. Most of all, it's the hollow of grief left from the loss of a very loving being who is no longer physically in our midst - and for a very pointless reason.

Jasmine was a vibrant, fun-loving little girl. She had her own mind and knew what she liked and she went at life wholeheartedly, enjoying every moment of it. She spread joy and love to just about everyone she met, and meeting people was the absolute highlight of her life (along with banana, of course).

We went to the market last Saturday and she was missed. A little boy in the cafe came running up looking to say hello to her; her friends at the roast chicken stall always enjoyed seeing her each week...

She would always listen and look up adoringly as Tony spoke to her, absorbing each word he said.

She joined in on any activity...
and helped things along in whatever way she thought would be fun...
and she loved to play.
She asked to go out: for a walk or to go shopping. Every time we would go to the bio store for our weekly shopping, if we occasionally had to leave Jazzy at home, everyone would ask where she was. We haven't gone this week...we'd rather make do with the food we have left this week than face feeling the pain of not having her with us there.

She loved loafing around on her playstation, being silly, having fun, playing......watching to see what new toy configurations we would think up for her to play with next.She loved being mischievous to get our attention, that's what she wanted most, our attention to play and have fun.
She always had loads of fun when we were out, and so did we. And she was ever eager to try new things.



She made us laugh so easily, and so often - she spread her joy, that was what she did best.





Enthusiasm is also a good word to describe Jazzy. Zest for life.

And of course, beauty.
Jasmine would have turned three at the beginning of this November, in just a couple of weeks' time. She already had a huge vocabulary. I've been writing down all the things she said. She made up her own sentences and they made sense. She spoke her own mind, she didn't just copy or imitate, though she did enjoy doing that too, in its place. She had a personality plus.

We miss her, always there, always full of cheer. And when we think of her now, we try to hold that cheer and love and joy that she gave us. Hopefully time will help us with our feelings of loss.

As she said herself: "Beautiful Jasmine!"

Restaurant Warmth

Occasionally we stop at a restaurant, called the Piatto d'Oro, in Geneva, Switzerland that's very close to the airport. It has a large outdoor terrace which is nice in summer - although you can almost touch the planes as they go overhead to land.

I love warm bright restaurant and cafe scenes; I'm thinking to paint this one day since it's so heart-warming.

We went some time ago and it was too cold to sit on the terrace. The inside is very nicely decorated. Here's a photo showing a small part of it that I think is really neat.

Next door to the restaurant is a house with a pretty garden full of flowers. Along the curb where cars park for the restaurant were these.

The Charm of Wisteria

Wisteria seems to grow well in the Geneva area and surrounds. It adorns many homes, providing color, beauty and shade.









Wisteria in the Parc des Bastions in Geneva, Switzerland, makes this wall even more interesting.





The way the vines spread out enhances the flowing shape and accessibility of the flowers.









The purple flowers hang like bunches of sparkling grapes.




















In Annecy, France, there is a magnificent white wisteria vine on one of the buildings along the canal.








Looking at it from the other side you can see that it has grown up three balcony levels.





















It's massive with flowers covering the wall almost entirely.











It gives the same fairy-like quality that Art Nouveau can give. I love the way the reflections of the water from the canal play with the white flowers.
The trunk almost gives the impression of having a living being hidden within it, perhaps a fairy that emerges when we're not looking. Whatever, it certainly has character and seems to speak of something old.


The vines knot together, making it appear to be one whole trunk.










Looking up through the blossoms gives the ultimate view of its delicate finery.

The Way In Which We're Changing Our World

I spend a lot of time thinking about how our world is changing and what we, as the human race and dominant animal on our planet, are doing to our environment and ourselves. My mind goes round and round wondering how it is that we can continue in behavior that clearly does us harm. There are all sorts of examples of this, both obvious ones and not so obvious ones. We can become addicted to all sorts of behavior, substances and even emotional circumstances. The question is why?

Most people are well-meaning, considerate and wouldn't intentionally hurt others. But it seems the truth is, we're not being alerted to certain conditions quickly enough to trigger a healthy response to ensure ourselves a better future. Today someone sent me a video entitled: "Why haven’t we rallied our collective power to solve global warming?", and it happens to cover this very question and seems to provide an answer to this query.

I don't usually link to videos because they can often take more time than a person might want to give. Here is the choice of listening to the well-prepared talk by Dan Gilbert in video format, or a shorter summary in print. (The print version includes a reference in the title which I would not personally use as an example in today's world as something offensive to the general public's morality and I don't wish to offend anyone by linking to this. But if taken as simply an illustration that can be replaced by something that is offensive to the reader, then the point being made remains apparent.) I do recommend watching the video talk if you can spare the time - it's about 14 minutes long.

If I understood it correctly, Dan Gilbert, Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, is saying that because our brains aren't wired to pick up gradual, impersonal changes we don't vividly compute such changes as an immediate threat even though they may be tremendously dangerous to us in the future.

I've always thought that if every breath I take didn't hurt (it doesn't hurt when I'm in pristine country air) I too would completely forget about global warming, pollution, the overuse of chemicals, cleaning products, laundry products, fabric softeners and perfumes. But each breath racks the lungs with burning pain and the brain with the continual question: why?

I remember how vibrantly blue the sky looked against a beautifully crisp green tree when I looked up as a teenager. I remember specifically telling myself to always remember that snapshot view because it was so fantastic. And today these truly brilliant colors of nature around us can still be seen, but only rarely and on especially clear days. And I wonder how we can forget what our world was not so very long ago and how we can tolerate it...and I'm not that old!

And then when I watch a beautiful bird, an African Grey, scratch and fleece herself of her feathers in very specific spots and become lethargic and dull, as a result of being poisoned in that same chemically poisonous atmosphere, my cry of anguish and the question "why?" becomes even more excruciating. Previous post "Jasmine and Her Continuing Tousle With Air Quality" gives the background to this, if you're not familiar with Jasmine.

Somehow I feel better with the understanding that Dan Gilbert's talk gives. I knew it wasn't malice on our part as human beings, but it seemed so inexplicable and has been perplexing me for some time. Hopefully soon we can show our intelligence on a large scale, to save the beauty of our planet, ourselves and the other living beings we share it with, both microscopically tiny and large. I hope it answers something for you too. Cheers.

Living Mountains, Jura, France

Mountains are made up of a myriad of living entities. It's only reasonable that as a conglomerate they would appear to be living, almost breathing beings themselves. Every time you look at them, they appear slightly different.

Sometimes the moon adorns their hillsides in the morning hours.

Clouds appear to play with the trees, dipping down to touch them.

They lay down gently covering them like a blanket.










And in the evening, the cloud can look like it's bubbling over the edge of the peaks......like a chemistry experiment with froth slipping over the edge of a beaker.


Or maybe it's like a duvet, covering all the mountain and its inhabitants softly and safely for the night.

Portrait of a Horse In Egg Tempera

On our many walks this summer Jasmine (our African Grey parrot) and I met a very nice horse. At the beginning of summer she was out in a field close to the road and that's when we met. I took a photo and it resulted in this 12 x 16 " portrait egg tempera painting.
During the heat of the summer the horse literally had a house all to herself so far as I could tell. In this photo she's standing in the doorway, but could retreat inside to stay cool and away from the flies. Jazzy and I would call and whistle from the road just to say hello as we walked by.A couple of weeks ago, when it got cooler, our friend was back out in the field near the road. She rushed over to say hello and be petted. It was so nice finally to be able to say hello properly. And of course, another photo session was in order.
Even Jazzy liked her and was saying hello and chatting. When the horse turned away for a moment Jazzy did her hawk call imperso- nation (for the first time outdoors). Hearing this, the horse jerked up her head and looked round, not suspecting that it could be that little prankster Jasmine.

She's absolutely beautiful, and huge!
But even though the horse towers over me, she's extremely gentle and very sweet. This delicacy and sweetness is so striking that I think of her as 'Daisy'.

Summer Clouds in the Geneva Valley

The cloud scenery in the Geneva valley is totally spectacular and ever-changing. Sometimes it looks like the clouds have exploded.








On the way into Geneva I took this photograph from inside the bus.About an hour or two later I returned to find the cloud like this.Clouds like these can be seen bubbling on hot summer afternoons. They either develop into dramatic thunder and lightning rainstorms or evaporate in a quiet puff.

The clouds seem to come over the Jura mountains in waves.



Sometimes the cloud wave is big and seems completely continuous; it feels like it's going to keep flowing until it has engulfed everything below it.

At other times the clouds appear in discontinuous strips, popping over the mountains one by one.



The most impressive funneling effect I've seen was looking out the window one evening recently to see this.