I Shoot People

I’m back in Milwaukee to stay! For a while I was wondering whether I’d ever be able to say that again. But, we’ve gotten a lot done in the last few months and that has all been worthwhile.

I find myself slow to begin rescheduling shoots; I’ve been back in town for over a week and just yesterday managed to get all of my office back online– Multiple computers, scanners, hard drives — all that stuff that I trundled off to Ohio needed to be plugged and initialized and re-corded. And being a typically anal-retentive guy I also ended up sorting out a better way of laying out the office than I had before.

Like many, many Wisconsinites we’ve been troubled with water problems — downpours and wind have caused their share of concerns. None of which make getting back into the studio any easier — but they are all part of life — part of that “Plan B” I was talking about. It’s hard to realize that in 13 days we’ve had almost 13″ of rain. WoW is all I can say. Ouch is all my wallet says.

But resilience is part of what life is about and we’re doing our best to be resiliant.

More to come — sooner than the last updates.

Oh — and by the way – My website is due for a soon-major-update. Stay tuned.

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated anything — on my blog or on my site. Truth is, I haven’t been thinking about photography much at all.

When my father in law entered the hospital in February for “routine” heart surgery we didn’t much think about it…. it was like thousands of other surgeries — except that wasn’t how it turned out.

I’m not going to go on at length about the surgery, complications, etc. Suffice it to say that he passed.

And…. having a wonderful wife, who happens to look at the world much more simply than I, it fell to me to see to the dissolution of Frank’s estate and house, etc.

I don’t need to tell anyone that it’s not a good time to be selling a house; and with his property in OHIO and us living in Cudahy it’s been challenging. My office is now in OH, and I commute home for weddings and miscellaneous stuff but haven’t had much time to shoot anything of interest to me.

We’re getting down to the point now that I may be able to return home, leaving an unattended and mostly vacant house behind (not my first choice) but I suspect that when I return I will take a few days to shift gears before turning my attention to anything creative. Death and dying are not my favorite sources of inspiration. And I suspect my work will be different in some ways than it was before. I think dealing with death is a good thing — we all die sooner or later — and coming to terms with one’s own mortality is a good thing.

I’m not sure what will be different, but that will all find its way out in the wash….. In the meantime — for you who use me, who work with me, and who model for me — I’m still alive — just trying to regroup.

My Son-in-law Mike sold our spare car yesterday.

Not such a huge deal, except maybe if you were an only child like me and never served in the mility. You see, some of us fossils like to be self sufficient and for years the idea of asking people for help was anathema around the Pazucha household.

Having a single child did not help the matter much. And living nearby to one set of parents or another offered easy babysitting when the time came for date-night over the years. But adding a son-in-law to the mix made for huge changes.

I’ve often told people, when speaking my Mike that he was the only fella that Katy dated that I ever would have WANTED as a son-in-law. He’s a great guy, with strong morals, even stronger ethics, and a heart — a caring, sensitive heart. It turns out that he’s a great salesman — he could sell ice to the Eskimos if they needed it. A minor distinction perhaps from the adage. But a distinction that means a lot to me. The world is full of people who will attempt to sell you whatever you have to sell. Having the honesty to sell what might be needed IS a distinction.

Anyway…. he brought a buyer around last night… a guy who’d been driving me crazy last week while I was in OH about how much I wanted for the car and when he could test drive it, etc. Mike ran interference for me, handled all the paperwork and collected the money — for a small business man I hate business. I’d be much happier if I could just create images.

Today and tomorrow are tax day — get that out of my hair, trundle all my cameras and ‘puters into the car for what might be a couple months duration stay in OH. It will feel odd living in Frank’s place for a while and 300 miles away from Peggy. I’ve done a lot of traveling in my career but this last 5 weeks has been the most difficult time for me since getting married. I’m a married guy by nature. I love my wife, we never have enough time together, and the two of us are a functional unit — when one is absent the “unit” doesn’t function as well and I get cranky and ornery and generally unpleasant to be around.

I did have a break yesterday. Young Sarah drove in 80 miles for a photoshoot. We had fun, created some nice images, and it helped me pass the day.

Americans are afraid of death. I’m convinced that this is so. No wonder we can’t understand the desperation of suicide bombers — we can hardly accept the reality of death.

I should mention that my father in law IS getting better. So, this entry is not about him.

Peg & I were faced with the totally depressing need to search for a rehab center for this wonderful 85 yr old geezer who is our last remaining parent. He was vital and active before the surgery and the surgeon is optimistic he will return to pre-surgery condition — if he has the courage to endure all the rehab he needs to build up muscles he’s lost in the last month.

Our search did not last all that long. A wonderful social worker at The Toledo Hospital named Nicole Janicki did a wonderful job of getting us valid and valuable information from which to make our tours and decisions. Which did not minimize at all the reality of once again visiting nursing homes. There was a time when for a short while I’d taken a short term job that involved among other duties working with hospital transfers, so the reality of nursing home life was not something I was not prepared for, but it reminded me how tragic the condition of so many of our senior citizens has become.

I know that caring for seniors is no fun. We have been fortunate in being able for care for our own parents and grand parents up until now. And I know that’s not always possible. The reality of people living hundreds or thousands of miles from their loved ones makes personal care very difficult. But, Frank is the first who will face any time in a rehab/nursing facility and it’s hard indeed.

When I visit a grocery store there is no evidence of death. When we lose a loved one in death there are clean and perfumed mortuaries to which our deceased are taken and made to look presentable. Hospitals and nursing homes remove the sick and dying from sight most of the time and hospital waiting rooms are filled with family members who seem to be in a state of shock while waiting for their loved ones to finish a surgical procedure.

I wonder how it happened that american culture grew in such a way as to remove death from daily reality. And yet murder and violence are such a part of our entertainment rituals. Only hunters and fishermen have any regular contact with death voluntarily. And people like Dr. Death (Jack Kevorkian) are viewed with such radically different opinions because as a people we don’t deal with death — we tend to isolate it away from us so that it becomes irrelevant — until we ourselves have to face it.

I have no answers. But I admire cultures that keep death and mourning more in the forefront of life. We shall all die. We can put it from our minds, but living each day with the reminder that life is limited and not always all that long is good advice.

So is valuing the people in our lives each day. Family, friends, associates — they will not always be here. Our jobs will come and go. Bosses may like the work we do but if we leave the company the business will most likely not fail — we are expendable.

But to the people in our life — family, friends, associates — we are important indeed.

Give someone a hug today. Send them a flower. Tell them you love them. They will not always be around. YOU will not always be around…..

Dont be afraid of love.

P

Finally some good news on the father-in-law-health front.

We’ve  spoken with the surgeon who is now ready to release the old boy to a rehab center.  While Frank continues quite weak, and will need significant exercise and the rebuilding of muscle tissue that hast atrophied — yet it’s good to have a step forward, and a step closer to a return to his home.

Frank’s always been a wonderful, proud, active guy — it will be good if we can see him return to his life, and to his girlfriend (yup — at 85 he’s still a vibrant, active male <snicker>).  We wish him only the   best.

And it looks as if his need for additional  rehab needs will mean that one of us remains in Frank’s hometown, minding the house and nagging the old boy to do his exercises…. better to be temporarily disliked as the whip-cracker than to see him decline into senility and incapacity.

Ok — I’m not much of a drinker, so this is a deviation from my normal sort of thing, but I couldn’t resist.

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The Many Uses of Vodka

Aside from being a fantastic drink, vodka has many uses which you may not have known about. Since vodka is one of the world’s most popular drinks, many of us have a bottle handy in the home. And since its typically filtered and pure, it makes a handy liquid to have around.

Here are a few uses:

1. To remove a bandage painlessly, saturate the bandage with vodka. The solvent dissolves adhesive
2. To clean the caulking around bathtubs and showers, fill a trigger-spray bottle with vodka, spray the caulking, let set five minutes and wash clean. The alcohol in the vodka kills mold and mildew.
3. Clean jewelry. Soak the jewelry in vodka for five minutes, then rinse, and dry.
4. Clean lipstick from clothing. Rub the stain with vodka, then throw into your regular wash.
5. Remove the glue left behind by a bumper sticker. Rub the glue with a soft, clean cloth soaked with vodka
6. Prolong the life of razors by filling a cup with vodka and letting your safety razor blade soak in the alcohol after shaving. The vodka disinfects the blade and prevents rusting.
7. Spray vodka on vomit stains, scrub with a brush, then blot dry.
8. Using a cotton ball, apply vodka to your face as an astringent to cleanse the skin and tighten pores.
9. Add a jigger of vodka to a 12-ounce bottle of shampoo. The alcohol cleanses the scalp, removes toxins from hair, and stimulates the growth of healthy hair.
10. Fill a sixteen-ounce trigger-spray bottle and spray bees or wasps to kill them.
11. Pour one-half cup vodka and one-half cup water in a Ziplock freezer bag and freeze for a slushy, refreshable ice pack for aches, pain or black eyes.
12. Fill a clean, used mayonnaise jar with freshly packed lavender flowers, fill the jar with vodka, seal the lid tightly and set in the sun for three days. Strain liquid through a coffee filter, then apply the tincture to aches and pains.
13. To relieve a fever, use a washcloth to rub vodka on your chest and back as a liniment.
14. To cure foot odor, wash your feet with vodka.
15. vodka will disinfect and alleviate a jellyfish sting.
16. Pour vodka over an area affected with poison ivy to remove the urushiol oil from your skin.
17. Swish a shot of vodka over an aching tooth. Allow your gums to absorb some of the alcohol to numb the pain.
18. Soothe a sore throat. Add a tablespoon of vodka to glass of warm water and gargle. The alcohol helps numb the sore throat.
19. Eliminate swimer’s ear. If you don’t have rubbing alcohol, fill an eardropper with vodka, and squeeze it into the affected ear, then let it drain out

Article source: Miss Charming.com. Photo courtesy of Kaishin on Flickr (via Creative Commons).

Days 17 & 18 post-op have been good days for dad.

I’m an eternal optimist but I must admit that he was having so many little setbacks that it was iffy how or whether he would have enough sheer will to live to get over what would have been a difficult surgery for someone 30 years younger than his 85.

He is now finally off oxygen — including the moisturized air he was getting to soothe his parched mouth — I have decided that being a mouth-breather is definately a bad thing.

Speaking and being heard is a bit of a problem for him. So little air volume means just a little air through his voicebox and ears pressed close to his head to hear. But he’s got a good attitude and he’s a fighter.

In the meantime I hope do the 50/50 commute. A week at his place and a week back home shooting. Not the most efficient use of time, gas, or resources — but one has to do what they have to do.

Thanks to all my clients and models who are being understanding during this blip in human history.

With luck I’ll get this blog back on track and do a better job posting.

For those that know me you know I’m a close-family guy.

We found out Saturday that my Father in Law needs bypass surgery so Peg and I are trundling our stuff into the car to give him a hand for a couple says.