I’m too busy to post today. With reading everyone else’s November blog posts, I can’t possibly find the time to write my own.
Congratulations to everyone who made it through the month of posting. It will feel so weird tomorrow to not have to figure out what to post about. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go cold turkey! Tune in to find out…
In order to help me out with the blogging thing, I have received two books (“No One Cares What You Had for Lunch” and “Learning to Love You More“) meant to put a spark to my lazy creativity. They both recommend sharing stories and/or photos about scars. Well, the best scar around doesn’t belong to me, but Lolly didn’t want me to take a picture of her arm. Little did she realize that I just so happen to have one at my disposal anyway.
The thing about showing the scar was to tell a story. I think that showing yer bones can tell an even better story.
Some years ago, before I met her, Lolly was driving her little sporty car on Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta. Then she was smooshed by a very large Ford Truck. This resulted in a very kissable little dent on her forehead and the shattered dominant forearm (oozing hamburger now pieced back together with metal plates and screws) you see above. Luckily, and against the predictions of the doctors and surgeons who told her she’d never type again, she does have a workable arm with all the moving parts generally intact. She can’t hoist a bowling ball, but she’s not the bowling type o’gal anyway. On our first date (that wasn’t a date until afterwards) while I wasn’t making much eye contact, I had the opportunity to gaze at the giant scar on her arm. Was it some really badly botched attempt at wrist cutting? No… finally I had to ask and heard about the smooshing, the metal plates and the subsequent encounters with public safety officials and their metal detecting equipment. She can set the detectors to beeping, particularly in Miami and at my previous place of employment.
After the accident, she had to show up at traffic court in spite of the fact that she had no memory of what happened. One of the men gave her an appreciative smile as she walked in her little dress with her pretty smile and her giant bandaged arm and said, “You’re looking much nicer today!” And was then that she realized, having previously received the shreds of the clothing she had been wearing at the time ["My dress! My favorite dress! Yay! .... Cut in half and covered in blood?? NOOOOooooooo . . . . " - Lolly], that she indeed had been naked on Ponce. Not that the clothes were blown off in the accident or anything, but due to the dramatic scissoring ministrations of the EMTs. In my mind, when I picture it and the intersection in front of the Krispy Kreme in which it happened, the “Hot Donuts Now!” sign is flashing.
I poked around in my iPhoto to see when else I might have endeavored to capture something panoramic. Here is a meadow at Mt. Rainier in August 2006. Clicking to view should bring it up around 2500×600 px. (So far no one has complained about the size of the last one.) These are both fun and frustrating. I’ll have to try again sometime with new photos using Matt’s hint about the manual setting.
More sky issues with these four photos, and I was standing on the side of a hill. This one isn’t as pleasing to me as the one from the zoo. Plus, there are no jingle boars.
Here’s the zoo panorama – take 1. I’m reasonably pleased with the result. Most of the joints are obvious. Like all puzzles, the sky is the most difficult; in this case it’s because the color changes so drastically between photos. Hopefully, if you click on the picture it will blow up to about 3000×600 px. Hopefully. And if it crashes your browser, I am sorry and please let me know so I can resize it.
This is made up of five photos from the overlook above the “Magic Forest,” home to the alpacas and the jingle boars.
[Edit: because it's very doubtful that my photo, even if quite large, would actually crash an ISP]
I did it again. I ran out of posting time. I have five minutes to gussy-up a kitty picture…. and here she is. I do love my companion animal.
[photo removed for remodel]When I ran out of time I was working on a different Photoshop project. I am a big fan of Matt’s panoramas, and I was trying to create one myself from a few of the pictures from the zoo. Maybe I’ll finish it tomorrow.Oh NaBloMoPo, how I very nearly forgot about you today.
I spent the day watching Razor on the TiVo, finishing the laundry, editing some video clips for a work assignment (Quicktime-Pro is a life saver) and totally forgetting to post! Until now. So here it is, blah blah blah, just under the wire. If I was smarter I would have set aside some time to work on enough posts to finish in style. I may have to resort to all-pictures-of-cats-all-the-time for the rest of the week.
T’was the day after Thanksgiving, and all through the zoo the statues were draped with garlands and bows. There was a little frost over the ground and it was near freezing so they didn’t seem all that out of place. Except on certain animals….
The tinsel anklets amused me, but not nearly as much as Lolly’s lyrics.
Some time ago Lolly decided that she would eventually like an alpaca ranch (with full urban amenities of course.) Brochures began to arrive in the mail, web pages were bookmarked, television commercials were re-watched and watched again. Lolly sure loved her some alpacas. Sadly, the poor girl had never gotten to see one in person. I was pleased to report that there were some not too far away at the zoo. So today, filled with Thanksgiving Goodness, we ventured forth to visit the alpacas…
“Hello and Welcome. I think you should feed us.”
“Clearly you see that the sign says to feed us. If you feed us, I will smile.”
“Mmmmm. Nuggety. Gracias.”
“Smile.”
“Extra smiles for extra food?”
- :) -
Lolly said that before she went she thought it was possible that she wouldn’t like them as much as she thought she would. In fact, she confessed that she hoped maybe she wouldn’t so she wouldn’t have to work so hard to save money to buy a farm and stock it with alpacas. But, she adored them, so back to work she goes. (I don’t think she’s played Burning Monkey Puzzle Lab all day!)
