You can hardly ever go wrong if you photograph what you love...

On Mondays there is no swim practice in the morning. Mondays B. and I go for long walks through the neighborhood. We listen to the sweet song of the grackles, the lullabies of the blue jays and the velvety tones of gas powered leaf blowers off in the distance. We go up steep hills and down gentle grades. I have longer legs and I change my gait to match hers. It's a good time to talk over future plans, finances, the week's menus and whatever new project we want to inflict upon the house or the gardens.

Today was a different Monday. B. decided to vary the routine and walk around part of Lady Bird Lake, on the hike and bike trail. It was a good idea. A good change of venue. I started planning the route in my head. We'd park on the north side of the lake. Up a hill and a couple blocks away from where the train tracks rush through the middle of town. From the north side of the train tracks all the way down a dirt path and around the back of two big apartment towers there is a passageway leading to Mañana Coffee and then, beyond, to the lake and the trails. It was my plan to cross the tracks and take the dirt path behind the building on the West and then, after transiting the coffee shop, to cross the walking bridge and hit the trail on the other side. Which we did. 

It was an unusual day for the first week of May. The weather has been unseasonably cool and now wet. There were soft breezes spinning along most of the trail but when we got to the farthest point, where we cross back over to the North side of the lake on the pedestrian bridge that runs under the Loop One highway, there were cool, dry gusts of wind that threatened again and again to blow our hats right off our heads and into the dark water some forty or fifty feet below.

The section of the hike and bike trail we walked on is about 3.5 miles in all. There are some gentle hills and almost all of the pathway is covered by tall trees currently covered with leaves. The trail wasn't crowded today as it usually is during the weekends. Mostly, today, it was solitary runners and then pairs of women in running gear or black stretchy pants and Hoka shoes talking to each other continuously as they walked along. 

While most of the women were locked in pleasant conversations the lone men chose to run slowly instead of walking quickly but no matter their speed they stayed the course with serious and uncomfortable expressions on their faces. For them the orbit around the trail was more a duty than a pleasure.

When B. and I completed our route we stopped in at Mañana Coffee to buy some drinks. I have noticed lately that when I am out by myself or with B. the counter help or staff at coffee shops, restaurants or retailers have started to treat me with what I would call "deference for old age." They deliver questions in a slower and clearer, and maybe slightly louder way. They presume that I won't understand what's in an espresso based coffee drink. Or how to maneuver through a checkout touch screen. And they are unusually, almost painfully, more pleasant to me than they were to the person ahead of them in line. I attempt to fit in. I don't want special treatment. I tap my phone on their terminals to effect Apple Pay. I preemptively ask for whole milk in my cappuccinos as that's how the purists make them. But the outward expression of age is becoming insurmountable. No matter how I try to fit in it's obvious to the people in their twenties that I look like I came from their parent's or grandparent's generations. 

At one coffee shop near the university campus, a shop where I imagine they see a person over 50 about once a month, a kindly young woman behind the counter sized me up one day and charged me half price for the coffee and tossed in a pastry at "no charge" because they were "day old." I imagine she was trying to do a "poor" senior citizen a favor. I didn't want to minimize her act of kindness so instead of using my phone to pay, or pulling out an American Express Black card, I fished around in the wallet I carry and found enough cash with which to pay. She gave me a sad, supportive smile after she gave me my change. I didn't know what else to say.

B. and I sat at a small, outdoor table and enjoyed our drinks and also a warmed, chocolate croissant (or pain au chocolat ) to celebrate what may or may not become a new Monday routine. As we sat and watched younger people arrive, order drinks and then nuzzle up with their laptops computers and ever present phones I told B. that on several visits here for coffee I had finished up and started heading for home when I heard thunder and, as I walked along the air turned colder and the wind picked up. By the time I'd gotten to the top of the hill, following up the familiar dirt path, my forward progress was thwarted by a cargo train that was pulling hundreds of cars and which took seven minutes to pass by. Seven minutes during which all I could do was to stand and wait. And that in the middle of the waiting it started to rain. 

At first there were small, ineffectual drops. Not much harder than a drizzle. But as the train thundered along in front of me, blocking my path, the rain started falling harder and the thunder of the train was joined by peals of thunder from the skies, along with lightning as a visual accompaniment. 

As I stood waiting the skies grew darker and darker until the automatic lighting on various buildings started to flicker on. Giving the impression of a winter dusk though it was, at the time, midday.

I always walk with a hat and B. knew this. I continued to tell her about those episodes and touched on how I took that rain spattered hat off my head to use it to cover the ever-present camera I usually had hung over my left shoulder. A hat is a convenient camera cover to protect the body and lens from the intrusion of ever more insistent rain. Sadly, hats only work on one's head or in the protection of a valued camera but not both at the same time.

Once the lumbering train cleared from my path I walked briskly back to my car a few blocks away, forging a head through a rain that felt vengeful, thoroughly soaked by the time I got to the car. I popped the trunk and got out one of the swim towels that live there and put it down on my leather car seats to keep them from getting too wet. 

After I related the story to B. and after we'd mostly finished our coffees I looked to the Southwest and saw that the sky had darkened and the wind was picking up. "It's time to go." I said. We headed toward the dirt path that would take us over the train tracks and back to the car. A light rain started to fall. As we were heading up the hill we heard a train coming up the tracks from South Austin and making the turn to head to the West and finally to the North. We weren't fast enough to cross the tracks before the trains raced in front of us so we were constrained to stand back and wait for it to come through. 

There were three engines in the front of the train. And then three more in the middle of the train and, in all, a nearly endless stream of cars. The trained slow a bit at the same time that the rain fell harder. I pulled my hat off my head and wrapped it as well as I could around the Leica M240 I was carrying with me. B. laughed and said that this is exactly what the story I was telling just ten minutes ago predicted would happen. After what seemed like an hour the train passed by and we walk briskly to the temporary dry sanctuary of an apartment building on the other side of the tracks. Other people had ducked under the overhang of the roof to find respite from the downpour. The young couple next to us had their phones out and were checking the weather. "Any chance it will slow down soon?" I asked. "Nope. The weather radar looks pretty bleak for now. Probably hard rain for the next hour. Hour and a half." The man said.

I told B. that I didn't want to wait and if it was okay with her could we walk through the rain to the car and just get it over with. She said that would be fine with her. Like an adventure of sorts. It's not often that we find ourselves stuck out in a downpour together, after all. 

We hustled back to the car and B. hopped in while I pulled some fresh swim towels out of the truck. We dried off before starting the short trip home and congratulated each other on a fun and totally different Monday morning. I had fun doing this. It's nice to have the privilege of not having to show up at a job and work all day. Rain or shine.

It's even more fun to have a best friend who is also not hampered, schedule-wise, by the constraints of a job. 

What am I reading now? I'm a big fan of the poetry of Billy Collins. I have a copy of his collection called, Sailing Alone Around the Room, and I'm just busting into his latest collection, a book called, Water, Water. Poems. His work is accessible and fun. Modern yet unencumbered by academic fluff and inside jokes. He is the "Anti-Barthes." A good poet for people who don't need therapy.

New camera acquisitions? None that I know of. The new stuff I'm remotely interested in isn't shipping anytime soon. But one friend is saving a Leica Tri-Elmar lens for me in case I suddenly want it. He's leaving for Mexico in a week and plans to leave the lens with me, perhaps to tweak my attraction to it. 

I was looking at battery prices for Leica this morning. There was a thread on one of the Leica fora that was started months ago about the scarcity of new batteries for the M240. Apparently Leica decided at one point to take the battery for that camera out of retail inventory and make it a "parts order" sort of deal. Apparently so many people ordered new batteries that Leica decided to double back and make it a stocking, retail item once again.

After reading this I thought to order one more, just in case. I went to B&H and was surprised to see a price listed as $90 each. The last time I ordered one it was $215. Heck, even a CL battery is more expensive right now. I ordered two of the M240 batteries. They are back-ordered so we'll see if and when they actually ship. We'll also see if the $90 price is a mistake or not. 

When I started buying replacement batteries for the Q2, SL and SL2 they were $285 each. Then Leica improved the batteries for use in the SL3 and Q3. They have more capacity. And the price for these replacements (which are fully backward compatible with the older cameras) dropped to $200. Well, not anymore! B&H now has them listed for $385 each. Hello tariffs!!!

Tomorrow's schedule is already packed. Swim practice first thing. Semi-annual dentistry; check up and cleaning, at 10. Lunch with my favorite creative director at 12:30. Portrait shoot at 4. Ramping up and ramping down are the new way I think that creative people retire. Work when it's fun, play with cool cameras and legacy lenses when you get tired of the clients. All good. 

I would throw in some literary quotes here but none seem to fit. I'll just quote K.B. Dixon when I need to say something smart. His book, "Too True" is my favorite antidote to pretentious blathering about critical philosophies about art. Nothing at all Punctum here. Go buy K.B.'s book and read his piece about Roland Barthes's "Camera Lucida." You'll either grind your teeth or roll around on the floor laughing. For me? Rolling on the floor.....

https://www.amazon.com/Too-True-Photography-K-Dixon-ebook/dp/B088W9LRKR/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1BY8PNLFWU3MD&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.OXnXfKPFGKefsPdby_7eow.oibnaP4atkjzWWufszHIppWtPLa0F1LQVZTB797mYic&dib_tag=se&keywords=Too+True+by+K.B.+Dixon&qid=1746478360&sprefix=too+true+by+k.b.+dixon%2Caps%2C108&sr=8-1

Not much affection for your crazy uncle Winogrand either....