Day Sixty-Five

We all have our talents, our God-given gifts. The sun gives life, heat, light, all of that, sure. But what he really loves is painting. And he's quite the artist, don't you think?

Bonus post

My friend Melissa added a new link to her photo blog: I Heart Faces (click on the button above to head to their website and check out all the fun pictures yourself!). I, being the photo junkie that I am, clicked on it "immediately and to oncet."

It was thusly that I discovered their weekly photo contest. This week is all about wedding bells. I would have linked straight to my original entry of this picture (which can be found here ) but it also includes a picture of tulips and two pictures is a no-no. So here's a brand new entry with just Amy's lovely, contemplative face. I love the quiet of this moment before the ceremony.



For those of you who don't know, I don't have Photoshop so there's not much I could do with this picture--for instance, I can't take out the bits of tape on the walls. So what you see is pretty much what you get, folks! :)

Day Sixty-Four

Man, posting on Mondays takes forever sometimes. Sorry about that.

Yesterday, I FINALLY got to see Up. And I'm so very glad. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. I was expecting to laugh a lot, and while I did laugh, I actually found it more moving than funny. Which, believe it or not, was a very good thing.



Strangely, I was also very moved by the short that opens the film. A different flavor, but I appreciated it quite a lot.

Day Sixty-Three

Last week I wanted frozen, melon-tasting popsicles. The closest I could find was a set of these Italian ice things called "PhillySwirls." Melon, lemon, cherry, strawberry, different twists of flavors.

I've been eating them all week long while watching my new Season One Chuck DVDs.



They were tasty.



They were pretty in a way that did not translate well to film.



And now they're gone--except for the raspberry swirled one, which I've saved for my sister.

Day Sixty-Two

Instead of bottled water, the Cherry Deli serves boxed water.



Seems it's better for the earth. There's even a website about it: www.boxedwaterisbetter.com

All I know is that it's refreshing, adorably designed...and plants seem to appreciate its existence.


"I love you, boxed water!" says my little tree. "I give you hugs!"

Day Sixty-One

I caught this little bird sitting on this post doing a strange St. Vitus's dance of fluff and furbelow. I could not imagine what the lad was doing, but he was into it enough that he took no notice of me taking a picture.

Here it cries, "Behold me, all you lesser beings! I am mighty! I am brave! I am he of whom sparrow ladies dream and for whom they swoon!"



"For," he continued, "I am the brawniest of hunters. I have felled the great bug of the ages, the likes of which no one has before seen."

And lo, I saw the bug. And it was mighty, indeed.



Oh, brave, brave Sir Sparrow!

Day Sixty

Sixty days...that's a nice, round number. And somewhere in the back of my head it's also associated with rehab or probation or something. Huh. Aaaaaanyway...

Okay, I've been wanting to post this one for some weeks now. The first time I tried, it posted it on its side. "Weird," I thought, but didn't think much of it, just uploaded it again. Same thing. "Huh," I thought.

So I tried redoing the picture. Tried it the next day. Tried it two weeks later. Tried saving it under a different name. Tried making it less square, in case that would help.

It did not.

Nothing did.

So, as Amy M. says, I'll just ask you to turn your head. You'll look funny, but no one can see you, so what do you care? And click on it, cause it's cooler bigger.

K'thx!

Day Fifty-Nine

My cats are very different from each other.

Yesterday as Amy M. and I were leaving for lunch, my apartment manager called and said, "Yes, you should move the cats for the spider death spray--they need to be gone an hour." Problem? My car was in the shop.

Wonderful Amy said, "Sure!" to picking up the cats and driving them around while we were off to lunch. Thankfully, she has three cats of her own so she knew this would involve much yowling and complaining. Mostly from Tabitha; she's very insistent.

When we got to the deli Amy went inside to order while I waited in the car with the kitterses. The car has stopped moving, the air is on, everyone's fine and comfortable--and it is thusly we can see their personalities emerge.

Hamlet figured out pretty quickly that we weren't going anywhere anytime soon. So he curled up and got as comfy as possible--just chillin'.



And then there's Tabitha. She continued to make sure I knew that just because the car was stopped, just because things were dandy, didn't mean she wasn't still displeased. "Mmmrrrow!" "Hey!" "Seriously, pay attention to me!" "I'm so opressed in this tiny, tiny torture chamber...woe, WOE is me." Note: there was a lot of room in the crate. She's just being squishy here so she knows I can see her in all her misery.



Though she was also the one who scarfed down the chicken bits from my delicious sandwich. Hamlet gets a little carsick and wasn't at all interested. Actual misery versus overdramatic kitty.

Day Fifty-Eight

Remember yesterday when I said the Culver's picture was black and white because I forgot to change the color setting? Well, this one was taking during that same time. By the time I'd figured it out, the bird had flown the coop, so to speak.

It's a cedar waxwing, by the way. A lovely buff color.



And this is the actual color of the setting.




And here's a reference picture from the Encyclopedia Brittanica for the waxwing's color.

Day Fifty-Seven

I know it's summer when it's too hot to eat. Thursday and Friday of last week, my dinner consisted of almonds and dried cranberries. Saturday, all I wanted to eat was frozen melon something.

On Sunday, I went to Culver's and got a double scoop of lemon ice and it was gooooooood. (It's also b&w because I forgot to change the color setting on my camera).



And then I went to the store and brought home a lovely haul of fruity things. Yum!

Day Fifty-Six

My weekend, despite this morning's terror, was actually quite pleasant.

Tabitha usually bathes Hamlet; he sometimes deigns to bathe her. But sometimes they'll bathe each other simultaneously and with great concentration and it's hysterical and adorable. These pictures are all blurry because they're going at high speed. Very dirty kitters, apparently. And I don't care. :)


If you look closely at the black blur that is Tabitha's head, you can see a smear of pink on Hamlet's front where her tongue is.



Hamlet's tongue makes an appearance. And this is apparently one of the pictures blogger doesn't want to post right, so turn your head.



Daawww.



And when we're all finished, sometimes we both forget to put our tongues away. Hee! (Turn your head again, won't you?) [Never mind, I think I've figured this thing out).

Day Fifty-Five

In which I have the worst morning ever.

You know that I post the weekend's pictures on Monday, yes? Which means that, while this looks like it's Saturday's post, said picture may not happen on Saturday. This particular picture happened this morning.

I have severe arachnophobia. SEVERE. It's not funny, it's fairly debilitating. I've gotten to the point that I can kill spiders on my own from necessity. But I still want to use something phonebook sized to do so for the smallest spider. What if it got away and crawled on me?! *shudder* So I'm scared of spiders. I crush them on walls and leave their smeared carcasses. I say it's as a warning to all others who would encroach on my domicile, ala heads on pikes, but really it's because EVEN WHEN THEY'RE DEAD, I'm afraid of them. And I can honestly say it's freaking me out to write about this. But that's at least partially because of the story to come.

I go into the bathroom this morning when I wake up. One does. What's the room in your house where you're the most vulnerable? I'd argue the bathroom. You're usually not dressed to some extent while you're in there and you're often doing things that there's no easy way to run away from, right? There I am, thankfully scooping out the litter box before using my own "litter box" when I see legs. And at first, even as my body is leaping backwards, my mind can't compute what I'm seeing. This isn't a house spider. It's not even a wolf spider (oh, I'm going to be sick). This thing looks like someone keeps giant exotic spiders and one got loose. And it's in MY bathroom!!!!!! I start hyperventilating, but the one thing I know is that it has to die. And I can't figure out how to get to it.

I run to find the biggest hardcover possible. I dash back to the doorway and it has moved to a slightly more convenient spot for me to squish it. And I can't make my (bare) feet walk into the bathroom to do it. I can't. I can't! I try. I think, "If I can drop the book from here, spine down, it should crush it." "But what if it doesn't and then I don't have a weapon?!" wails the other part of my mind. "I have to risk it," I think shakily. So I try it. And it misses. And it scuttles on the wall. I think, "Okay, if I just shove the book at it from its fallen position, I can still get it. I try it. It doesn't work. I run for another book (because there's no way I'm ever touching the fail book again. I don't know where the spider is-- it might be lurking underneath it.)

I grab another book and race back to the bathroom. The entire time this is going on, you understand, I'm sort of whisper-screaming, "Ohmygosh,ohmygosh,ohmygosh," with the occasional wailing, "I don't know what to DO!!!" and punctuating it all with, "nonononononononono." Now the thing is trying to escape and starts to move across the floor in front of me, oh horrors and thank heavens. I am uttering these piercing little screams without being able to stop and every time I shriek it jumps like I'm scaring it. Finally I force my hands to drop the book and it lands beautifully on top of the beast and crushes it.

And I'm still scared of it. I went sobbing away from the battle and I've never felt my heart pounding so hard and so fast and I couldn't stop crying and I'm still having a hard time talking myself out of just grabbing the cats and moving out, abandoning everything I own.

The last brave thing I did was to grab my camera to take a sort of picture for you. Because I knew some of you would think I was exaggerating on the size of it. So here a shot of just part of some of its legs with my cell phone for perspective. It's not edited or anything and I don't know if it's blurry because I couldn't bear to look at the picture when I was resizing it.

And I really wanted to read that book, dang it! I don't know how I'm going to clean the thing up. *sob* I'm still REALLY freaked out and inclined to tears. I don't know where it came from and I'm terrified there are more.

Day Fifty-Four

Two generations, three lovely women: this is my mother, my sister, and I.

Included for your viewing pleasure are a incredibly glamorous picture of my mother (a stage of her life I envy--I've never had a glamorous phase!), my sister's apparent California girl incarnation on the lower right, my completely adorable kindergarten picture in the middle, and what may be one of the best pictures ever of Steph and me in our homemade (and very fashionable) Easter dresses on the bottom left.

Day Fifty-Three

Today's entry is dedicated to Brian for his innovative pioneering of the new "More Books About Squirrels" EBYR category. Bravo, Brian. Bravo.

I also dedicate it to my own ability to be distracted at any given moment. In yesterday's marketing meeting, I saw a squirrel scale the top of a dead tree out the window and actually cried, "Squirrel!" Because I am, in reality, a golden retriever. *sigh*



Okay, I know that one's blurry, but I couldn't resist. Look at his little tucked up scampering!

And now, on to the actual photo shoot. Which squirrel will win America's Next Top Mammal?

Day Fifty-Two

This is NOT what the sky looks like today. I did try to load a picture appropriate for today's atmosphere but, once again, it loaded on its side. And I can't figure out why. So you get pretty, dramatic clouds instead. Yay for you!

Day Fifty-One

Sometimes this little blog has good pictures. Sometimes it has amusing (to me, at any rate) stories--often to make up for the lack of good picture. Because my amusement, really, is paramount. Sometimes the two previously mentioned goods even show up together. And sometimes I get to make art.






Now, I know I could have done more with this if I had some sort of photo editing program instead of the comes-with-every-computer Picture Manager. I can see the edges of what I wanted to have happen in this picture. But I'm still rather pleased with this end result as it stands. I'm a simple creature, after all. (Actually, I'm fairly complex, but I do enjoy simple things...does that count?)

Day Fifty

On this auspicious day fifty, I honor young imagination.

So I'm loafing about on Sunday afternoon and I hear a pounding noise. I look up and on the hill outside the building next door, I see something I think is completely awesome. There's a kid with a stick easily as long as he is tall. And he's scraping down the end with a rock. I kid you not.

It was pretty clear he was trying to make a staff. He would occasionally set the rock down and go over the staff with his hands, brushing the debris from the end. He cut some marks in a couple of places that looked like he wanted a good handhold.

And then when he was done, he stood up and started spinning the staff through the air, jabbing and twirling, the very picture of one of Robin Hood's merry men.

It was pretty darn cool.

Day Forty-Nine

If this ant had been a celebrity, I'm pretty sure I would have gotten decked. He did NOT want his picture taken and did his best to hide.

I took it anyway. I'm a good paparrazo. (The picture's more interesting if you click on it).

Day Forty-Eight

Remember that somewhat gloomy, ominous tower spike a few weeks back? Day seventeen? Well, those tangled vines were actually the wisteria before blooming. The tower is absolutely enshrouded in it and the vines are now in full bloom.

Isn't perspective interesting?

Day Forty-Seven

Today's post was inspired by a Facebook list. You know, "25 random things about me," "iPod answers to life's questions," "20 things I've never told you," lists like those. The list I happened upon was "15 books that have changed your life," or something like that. The idea was to name the books you'll always remember, that had a significant impact on you--good or bad.

I filled out a list, knowing it would be incomplete. I mean, fifteen? That's it? That's about .00000000002 of the books I've read in my lifetime. (Forgive my math skills; I'm going for "extremely tiny fraction metaphor" here).

So I went a gatherin' and put together a set of fifteen books. Some of these overlap with the list I made yesterday, some are books I looked at and went, "Oh! Duh!" This is by no means an exhaustive list -- it's missing any Agatha Christie, for one thing -- but it's a nice cross-section.

Day Forty-Six

You know how I know it's summer even though the temperatures refuse to get much past 70 degrees (for which I am profoundly thankful, by the way)?

Because the cottonwood is flying. (Click on the picture for a better view).



Sometimes it lands.



I don't think the seed has much chance of taking root here. Though that would be pretty cool. I love cottonwoods and their aspeny, singing leaves. Having one growing out of the trunk of my car would be sweet.

Day Forty-Five

Steeple.

Yep.

Day Forty-Four

I wish the scent of rain was bottleable--it reoxygenates the spirit.

Day Forty-Three

I had another picture all set for today's post, but for some reason it kept loading the horizontal picture vertically. I've tried everything to correct it to no avail. So, here, I like this picture. Maybe you will too.

Day Forty-Two

A country vignette.

Day Forty-One

My friend Jody was visiting her parents this weekend. I, in turn, visited her. And used her schmancy camera, which tried to defeat me at every turn. Fairly successfully, I might add. But I did wrestle one or two good pictures out of it. Thankfully, they're of Jody and they each portray an aspect of why we're such good friends.


We dream together.


And we laugh together.

Day Forty

Day forty? Can that be possible?

Here's my baby. Tabitha and I are out on the balcony. He was too, but he headed straight for the rosebush and snagged a leaf to munch on. When I started for him to take it back, he scooted inside, still munching. Apparently the scolding I gave him was effective, because even after I came back out, he stayed in. Mostly. His nose kept escaping all adorable-like.

(Please also note the bug carcass in the door trough. My housekeeping is somewhat lackadaisical).



Oh, and I say this every one in a while, but it bears repeating. Sometimes the details are hard to make out on these pictures. If you click on a picture, it'll take you to a bigger version that should still fit on your screen. Click on it! His nose is so cute!

Day Thirty-Nine

Last evening, I was doing a little Christmas browsing (yes, in June) on my favorite random grassy expanse.




Suddenly, I hear what sounds like cadence calls. It sounds like it's coming from just across the road at the giant movie complex. Which can't be right, can it? I peer through the trees and sure enough, there's a mass of people in matching t-shirts running purposefully as they call out. But that's kind of a random place to be running en masse. Is it a track team? There are a bunch of high schools and colleges in the area, after all. Or could it be one of the movies filming in the area? I jumped in my car and went searching.

And I found them streaming into a storefront.




What's that building they're heading into? Why, it's the:



It all makes sense now. As does the poor girl doing sprints up and down the sidewalk there, trying not to run into people. She was being TIMED.

Day Thirty-Eight

Yesterday Melissa was kind enough to send me a couple of pictures of Grace and Eowyn I'd taken with her schmancy camera while I was down there for Memorial Day. And since I spent all night last night cleaning my house, I'm going to show you these. Enjoy!

Day Thirty-Seven

Last night I had cooking experiment night. First on the agenda were kale chips. Chips made by baking kale. They turned out...okay. I like the idea, but as it turns out, cooked kale (even baked) smells a lot like cooked spinach. That's not a good thing.

I made it about halfway through the chips I'd created and they weren't bad. Very crisp and melty on the tongue. But after that halfway point, they weren't good, either. So the rest of them went into the trash. Next time I'm going to try a slightly different recipe and see if that helps.

Nonetheless, the baking process brought out some really gorgeous stained glass effects in some of the leaves. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Day Thirty-Six

A Study in Sunset Skies


Here we meet the flying elephant. Can you see him?



Over the roof of my apartment building, the very clouds were glowing.



Stunning color in my very neighborhood (I could have cropped out the lights but the picture loses something without the black trees against the clouds, I think):