Weekly Photo Challenge: Down
Thankfully, I’m not looking or feeling down!!
I’m feeling the opposite of down largely because I begin my new job on Tuesday!! Yesterday, though, I went to Zoo Miami and captured some photos that I think are sweet “down” photos.
The animals were really lively yesterday – they were surely enjoying the beautiful South Florida weather. Some of the animals, like the Gorillas, were having fun just being sleepy. And the Giraffes, well…. their life involves always looking down – they fit the bill rather well.
So, here are the photos for my interpretation of “Down.” I guess you could say this is my interpretation of an animal’s down-time…. 
Here’s a gorilla that we resemble, don’t you think? He’s either feeling pretty down about something, or his head is itchy! I’d wager his head is itchy!
And here he is just a moment later contemplating the grass:
And here he is…. praying?
And here’s another gorilla snoozing in the grass, under the shade of big rocks:
And here a lovely giraffe is doing what they usually do…. look down onto those of us below:
Weekly Photo Challenge: Regret
The weekly photo challenge this week is a tough one. The word is “regret.” I looked through all my photo archives and I found a few photos that would maybe resemble the emotion “regret.” But, not really. Regret is a complex emotion, not easily recognizable in a photo because it could look like so many other emotions. Regret is pensive, but pensive is not “regret.” Regret can be sad, but sad is not “regret.”
You see what I mean?
Regret is a multifaceted emotion – layered with either a tinge or a great deal of sadness, or anger, or longing, or remorse.
Regret may consist of angst, too. Regret rears its elusive head over things we did, or didn’t do; things left unsaid; things left undone after it’s too late to change the things we did. Generally. saying “I’m sorry,” cures the regret. Well, in fiction and other fairy tales that’s true.
Regret also takes the form of wishing we could turn the clock back to redo or undo things. (If only life had the same “undo” or “redo” button that Microsoft Office and other software has.) Wouldn’t it be nice if that”Easy” button in the Staples televisions commercials really worked?
So, I found a couple of photos that captured an element of regret. I have a photo of a butterfly whose wings are badly damaged and who is clearly close to death. But, when I saw that photo tonight what I felt was sadness and then I realized I regretted taking the photo.
Another photo I looked was of my niece with a sad and pensive look with tears forming in her eyes. She wasn’t feeling regret, she was having one of those meltdowns that all kids have when they don’t get to do what they want to do. It wasn’t regret. Does a 6-year-old feel regret?
And then I had a picture of a Florida Panther that was really cute. He has his forehead between his paws, down on the grass as if he’s trying to scratch the top of his head on the ground. And I almost chose that photo because it was as close as I thought I would get to embodying regret. Of course, I know the panther was just giving his head a good scratch in the grass so it really didn’t look regretful. And after all, the more anthropomorphically realistic our animal photos are, the more we love them – the funnier they are. And funny is fun but it doesn’t say “regret” plus the photo is a bit blurry – horrors!
So, I kept looking for photos and nothing said “regret” to me. I looked up the dictionary meaning, too:
1. To feel sorry, disappointed, or distressed about.
2. To remember with a feeling of loss or sorrow; mourn.(verb)To feel regret.
(noun)
1. A sense of loss and longing for someone or something gone.2. A feeling of disappointment or distress about something that one wishes could be different.3. regrets A courteous expression of regret, especially at having to decline an invitation.
I was about ready to skip this photo challenge when I remembered what I’d bought tonight at the grocery store!!!!! And I said, out loud, BINGO! Talk about regret…. There’s guilt there, too….. Double whammy.
Mind you, I bought this in the grocery store tonight after I’d had a HUGE steak dinner at Outback Steakhouse.
After all, they say, it’s best NOT to go to the grocery store on an empty stomach, right? Well I went to Publix grocery store, still full as a whale, and look what I bought and what I immediately began to eat?!!!!!
So, here’s my chocolate chip-yummy-frosting-early-valentine-to-myself-definition of regret….
Weekly Photo Challenge: Ready? Splash!
This week the word for the photo challenge is, ready.
This little guy is deciding whether to jump into the water.
To splash or not to splash? That is the question!
He stood there a while just looking into space. Perhaps he was just dreaming, or maybe he didn’t like the water fountain. Or, maybe he was wondering if he needed a bath. Do birds decide when they’re ready for a bath? Maybe!
Photo by Andrea O'Connell
He seemed leery about the water fountain. He wouldn’t jump in until the fountain stopped…
By Andrea O'Connell
Then the water suddenly stopped and he was ready….
Photo by Andrea O'Connell
And then, not two seconds later, big splash!
Photo by Andrea O'Connell
Love those splashes!
Photo by Andrea O'Connell
He is having a grand time, until another bird came and he flew away…. you can see the wake he left!
Photo by Andrea O'Connell
Click on any of the photos to see a larger version.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Hope
This week the theme of the weekly photo challenge is hope…. (which I’m full of).
The first thing I thought of? Being hired at Microsoft! Oh, how I am hoping.
I don’t want just any job, I want the best job. I want a job that feels more like love than work. I want to love having my job and I want my employer to love my passion and creativity and hard work, too.
So far, the Microsoft opportunity feels like the best fit. And so, when the interviews are over, I hope Microsoft hands me something that looks like this:
And, here’s another little reminder of hope.
It was spring and all the birdies were building their nests when I shot this picture, at Butterfly World, in Florida. This little fellow was trying to bring that entire twig up to his nest in a nearby tree.
He tried and tried and tried….hoping to get it to the nest. It was amazing to see.
Ultimately, though, he turned to another twig more his size, leaving that one a much bigger bird.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Simple
This week’s photo challenge is to find a photo that says “simple.”
I know some kid, not too tall though, put this on the tree in his front yard one Halloween and there it stayed for a very long time. Simple. Unadorned. Sweet but kind of spooky in a weird Halloween kind of way.
I took this picture in late December, 2011, in Winterpark, Florida.
a writer’s journal with photography
I just published a book! Well, “Blurb” is doing all the work….I just supplied the photos!
<—- That’s the cover of the book. It’s a photography journal that I titled “Journal of Dreams.”
There are about twenty of my nature photos (birds, butterflies and flowers), throughout the 100 page journal.
It is very easy to create a book and it’s totally free! It’s really fun to create. If you want to make a book, go to the Blurb website: www.blurb.com
You have to download some of their software to create your book, which is really no big deal and they (Blurb) make the rest easy. And, there are many other types of books that you can create. I started out making a date book, but switched to a journal midstream, and it was easy!
Click below to flip through my book. The entire book is there. You can purchase a copy via the link and I think I make about $5.00 (I’m not sure), on sales. I need to look into how that works.
They say they print every book with high-quality paper and binding. I just ordered a copy as a gift to my Mom; so I’ll let you know how it turns out. From what I’ve read, they do a really good job and there are Blurb authors who are publishing and selling their own books like crazy!
I love the idea!
My book is below – Let me know what you think!
Hope you’re having a GREAT weekend!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Peaceful
The WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge asks us to post a photo that speaks “peaceful,” and this one works for me.
This is Pompano Beach, Florida, which is my home. Well, I don’t live on the ocean and this is not my view, unfortunately (or fortunately, during hurricane season!).
Although yesterday was an incredible day, it was hardly peaceful for me!
Yesterday began with a 7:30 am breakfast-tribute to the memory of Martin Luther King, Stand for Something.
The Broward County YMCA puts on this Martin Luther King Inspirational Breakfast program each year. This year J.R. Martinez – Iraq war Veteran, and more recently, winner of the Dancing with the Stars show, was the Keynote Speaker.
And, former Dancing with the Stars contestant and newly retired Miami Dolphins football great, Jason Taylor was honored with the Spirit Award, from the YMCA.
I’ll write about the event tomorrow – it was very special.
Then, I had a phone interview with Microsoft. Yes, THE Microsoft!!
The other day I wrote something about all the applications and jobs that I have on the burner and how I didn’t want to accept anything from Acme Computers if Microsoft called…. And…
Well….,
They called!
Who would have thunk it? They saw my resume online and called ME? OMG!
Well, I don’t have the job – yet. And, although I want to keep really positive about getting it….well, I’m realistic, too.
And I had another great interview with a firm that I like very much…
Then, last night, I saw a wonderful play about, of all things, wrestling! I am hardly anyone who enjoys wrestling – but I have a new-found respect for the show-business side of it now.
If you happen to be in the South Florida area, GO SEE this play. You will love it!
Playing at the Caldwell Theatre, Boca Raton, FL
uh, iPhone jailbreaking? for real?
Image via CrunchBase
There are things in this world, especially when it comes to technology, that wow me. One of those things is something called “Jailbreaking.” It’s something you do to an iPhone that removes the restrictions that Apple adds to the phone and allows you to download a bunch of Apps (applications) for free. It even allows you to download Apps that were created for the Android market.
When you jaibreak your iPhone you can do so many things that you couldn’t do with the Apple version. You can change wallpaper and the icons on your phone; you can video chat, watch live TV, play games that require Flash – like the Facebook games, and so much more.
And, when you jailbreak your iPhone, you also “unlock” it. Unlocking the iPhone means to remove restrictions that keep you with the original AT&T or Verizon carrier. You can take your phone to T-Mobile, or just about any carrier of your choice. That’s a huge benefit because AT&T is so expensive. I can attest to that.
It’s going to cost you about thirty bucks to jailbreak your iPhone, but it will pay off in the long run.
I found out about all this unlocking and jailbreaking is due to signing up as a Consultant with a global outsourcing company called oDesk. I applied through oDesk for a job as a writer for a company that writes about this technology.
Let me tell you a little bit how oDesk works.
The oDesk folks provide the website and a listing of jobs that come from employers all over the world. The employer posts jobs and identify the skills required to do the job(s) they want filled, usually on a temporary basis, though some are long-term. The oDesk system matches the potential employees skill-sets with the skills the employer indicates he or she needs. If a job looks like a fit, the employee can apply to the job, and then wait to see if the employer wants to interview the prospective employee.
So, I applied yesterday to an employer who needs a writer. To my surprise, I got contacted by the employer who asked me to submit work specific writing samples. I had to write two articles about jailbreaking and unlocking the iPhone.
He sent me the keywords and I had to strategically place the keywords in the content. The better the keywords, the better Google recognizes what the article is about and the higher they rank the article, thus driving business.
But, I thought, huh? What kind of scam is this?! Jail breaking???
But, I said okay, I’m open to anything.
So, I did some research, and wrote the articles today. But, I haven’t heard anything. I don’t know if my articles were good, really. I enjoy technical stuff, but it’s pretty boring to write about. So, I wrote one of my articles in a kind of a “dude-ish” slang, and the other article I wrote with lines borrowed from Shakespeare! In hindsight, I they may have been too creative. Oh well.
Well, I had no idea what the employer really wanted other than to use the words “jailbreak” and ‘unlock” in my articles.
So, I made them interesting!
I’m working really hard at finding a job. The thing about not working but looking for work, it’s a lot of very hard work! I’ve been working since the wee hours this morning and I’m still at it!
Well, I’m getting calls and responses. And I do have real irons on the fire. It’s all about patience. Finding and securing a new job is a long process and a juggling act, too. You have to keep a lot of balls up in the air hoping the best one will drop first. Nothing worse than saying yes to Acme Computer Company and then have Microsoft call! (I did apply to Microsoft, by the way….I can only hope to be considered….!)
So, it’s a busy time for me. But a good time, too. I’m in a good place with a lot of opportunities… the only thing I need now is patience. Not always my virtue.
I want to do the Post-A-Day Challenge for 2012, like I did in 2011, but I have decided it’s too much. Although blogging everyday has become a habit, it will be nice to take a night off now and then. So, that’s the plan! No pressure this year.
On a totally different note, here’s a present for your eyes! I took this yesterday while I was walking my dog. It was a beautiful day – birds, bees and butterflies were everywhere!
rants about labels
John Steinbeck is one of my favorite writers. His novel, The Grapes of Wrath, was made into a play in the late eighties. It started at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre and then went on to Broadway. I had a chance to see it in New York because a friend of mine was in the New York cast and he arranged a ticket for me. Gary Sinise played the lead and he was incredible.
Needless to say, it was an amazing production. It was especially cool because they built a pool on the stage – placed downstage center, and they created real rain, which was unique for the time, and utterly impressive to see.
Anyway, I came across a very timely quote of John Steinbeck’s (below) which accompanied the photo, also below…. And, that’s what made me think about The Grapes of Wrath, one of my all-time favorite novels. The story about the struggle of poor folks moving away from the poor-as-dirt-West to find a better life in California, is very much an immigrant story of today.
Back then great wagons moved entire families. Everything they owned was piled high on wagons bound for California – the promised land where there was work and better times.
It’s far different now. Cubans come to our shores on make-shift rafts, Mexicans pay thousands to be smuggled in and these people have nothing when they arrive. Soon they’ll work their bodies into the ground in a job no American wants – a terrible job but to them it’s not; it’s freedom.
I find it very odd that many people in this country know so little about human rights issues. The Human Rights issues are often ignored; people are labeled and the very ugly and distasteful issues about Human Rights are ignored, or so it seems. I find it mind-boggling and more than ironic that the people who are hurting the most will vote against their own interests simply out of ignorance or out of living with perpetual rose-colored glasses teetering on the end of their noses. Here’s what Steinbeck said so long ago about it:
photo from an anonymous source
Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. That’s the only reason I can see why people in the US continue to vote against their own interests. – John Steinbeck
Reading that quote, and the picture that went with it caused me think about the cruelty of today’s immigrant situation in the US, and the cruelty that we can’t seem to fix the homelessness of Americans. Homelessness, instead of being a problem that needs to be fixed, it’s become something that we just deal with now.
There was a time, back in the 70′s and 80′s, when homelessness began to be noticed in the mainstream media. A lot of people, and the government, talked about ways to fix or solve the issue, right?
Now, of course, it’s just a fact of life. It’s so common-place now, universities and US Financial Aid – which is handled by the Department of Education, accepts it as a matter of course. Universities EXPECT to have homeless students.
That floors me.
When I was in college there was no way a student could be homeless without the other students knowing about it. There would have been absolutely no way anyone would be homeless or hungry and in school without people helping them out. Granted, I was naive and still am to a degree, but it would not happen back then, other students would help. Professors would find out and help, too.
That was then, this is now, I suppose.
The irony of homelessness in today’s society is that so many got so very rich off of the Iraq invasion and occupation, and now many, many of the American veterans are homeless, suffering from PTSD and other terrible mental health illnesses. It’s so wrong on so many levels.
The problem with the immigrant populations, say the haters: “They’re taking our jobs, using our hospitals, crowding our schools….” and other such horrible and despicable words and comments about fellow human beings.
The facts are the facts. Immigrants don’t take the jobs Americans want. They do the jobs Americans don’t want! This type of hate, by the way, is what drives class wars… And, well – that’s really a topic for another day.
(When I sat down to this computer tonight, I intended to post some of the pictures I took today, but somehow my mind got stuck on Steinbeck and I completely forgot about the photos! There was nary a cloud in the sky today and I took Jazz (my dog) for a long walk around the neighborhood. I took my camera and while he found nice trees to relieve himself on, I found nice flowers, a butterfly, bees and a bird to photograph!)
One of these days, maybe, I’ll understand how our country and so many of our citizens can get away with labeling someone a “Socialist” rather than coming up with a solution to an issue. By virtue of labeling a problem or a person or a group of persons with some label, the problem is solved – it’s easier to label than to deal with the root of what is causing an issue to be labeled in the first place. Like the label takes the place of the problem to be solved.
I label you as a Jew because I don’t like Jewish people and that takes care of my problem. You’re Jewish so I can avoid you as my friend, as my grocer, landlord, sales person, hairdresser, etc. You are a Jew and I don’t like you therefore you are in the group called “my unlikeable’s” and so I put you over there, on a shelf, where you cannot mix with others who are not labeled like you…..
You know what I mean? It’s the same thing we do to Muslims today.
And so, because my labeling has worked really well with Jewish people and I’ve gotten them out of the loop and out of my space, I’ll do the same thing with immigrant people and gay people, and Muslim people and red-headed people and poor people, and before you know it, I have huge groups of disenfranchised people who are shrouded with that one big label that gets put on groups that haters hate. People get labeled because people are people and people have to hate because they know they can and be accepted by other haters for being a hater.
There are three kinds of people in the entire world. Only three kinds – three groups: Male and Female and In-between. And they should not be labeled either because we are all the same, at the end of the day, anyway.
Do you want to see a crisis? How about the MASSIVE poverty? How about the generation of children growing up in poverty, children whose parents were foreclosed out of the middle class by greedy fucking bankers, children whose parents didn’t stand a fucking chance against the big banks, children whose parents were born into poverty themselves, straight on down the line for years and years. And I’m supposed to feel bad for the rich bastards who refuse to pay decent wages or taxes? ~ The Daily Kos – Dear Beltway Insiders, while you make pretty speeches, I am being cut to shreds
Weekly Photo Challenge: Launch (of 3 Herons)
This week’s challenge is about finding a photo, or photos, that say launch.
Last year, early one morning, there were three lovely Herons on the bank of the canal, in my backyard. I tiptoed out, camera in hand, to see if I could capture them as they enjoyed the quiet morning, side by side.
I managed to capture this first photo without their knowing it, but it took only moments for them to know I was there:
In this photo, the one in the middle is just beginning to sense my presence:
And, in the very next moment, the guy in the middle is unnerved and probably says to the others, as he’s launching, “Hey Buds, I’m not sticking around,” as he readies himself for take off:
And there he goes:
Now that number one is gone, number two is getting out of Dodge, and number three is right on his heels, or rather wings, getting ready for take off:
And here’s the last glimpse of number three, as he’s heading out of the frame and on his way:
Related articles
- Weekly Photo Challenge: Launch (dailypost.wordpress.com)
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The Louvre Museum has 8.5 million visitors per year. This blog was viewed about 130,000 times in 2011. If it were an exhibit at the Louvre Museum, it would take about 6 days for that many people to see it.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Winter
Oh my! Old Man Winter hardly stops in South Florida – my neck of the woods.
When South Florida’s temps reach 60 degrees during the day, that’s cold! (And beautiful!)
There are rare South Florida days when the High-Temperature will get down to the 40′s or the 50′s. Alas, they are few and far between, but memorable. It’s pretty common to catch a whiff of moth balls on those very cold South Florida days. You’ll smell them well before you see them – furs are the usual suspects. When the furs come out, with the fine scent of moth-balls, you know it’s got to be below 60 degrees outside.
Anyway, this photo challenge is going to be a challenge, I thought at first. Then I remembered that I’d taken pictures of trees in Orlando that lost their leaves and seemed so brittle and old without them. Those pictures were a bit depressing and cold in the wrong way. Winter isn’t necessarily barren – there’s a lot of life happening in the winter, right?
Then, I looked at my bird photographs and saw this! It felt and looked like it could be winter, if you didn’t know it wasn’t! Well, I shot it during the winter months in Florida, anyway!
Can you feel the winter in it, too?
- A Jamaican Streamertail Hummingbird; Shot in Ft Lauderdale FL at Butterfly World by Andrea O’Connell
for the love of a dog
I’m out of gas today, and so is Jazz. Like me, he didn’t want to get out of bed this morning.
But, I had to get up – he didn’t have to get up until he was ready, and he slept for nearly 30 minutes after I was up!
Anyway, I’ve been working on the computer most of the day. I was also doing a little blog-browsing – looking at animal photos, and came across an article on the No Dog About it Blog, with the I Am a Forever Dog, Not an Until Dog, photo (below), and I liked the message. I really liked the blog, too. Here’s a link to the blog: No Dog About It Blog.
The article on the blog has to do with adopting dogs for someone’s Christmas present. Or, getting a puppy “from Santa” to make kiddos happy, but not having a plan to deal with the rest of the dog’s life. That happens more often than not, and we’ve all probably heard the horror stories. People have the greatest of intentions but don’t realize how much care and attention a dog requires. Cats are easy, not so with dogs. There is a lot of work associated with having a dog. It’s a big responsibility, and they can be very expensive.
When I was young, we had a little Chihuahua that we named Pedro. He lived a good long time and we had him for many years. The black and white photo (below) was my brother feeding Pedro his bottle. That was 1967!
One Christmas, while we still had Pedro, when my brothers and I were very young, Mom and Dad (Santa), bought us an adorable little chocolate-brown Poodle. We named him Honey Bear. We were crazy about him.
We’d had Honey Bear only two weeks when one day my folks called the three of us kids out to the patio to have “a talk.” The first thing we all wanted to know was when will Honey Bear be home, he’d gone to the vet the day before and we missed him like crazy. Well, my Father broke the news to us – while my mom sat silent and tried to hide that she was crying. (Mom never cried.) Then it became a family crying-fest. We all cried and cried and cried.
My brother giving Pedro a bottle, 1967
Honey Bear had been very sick, my Father gently told us, and would not be coming home. Honey Bear had Encephalitis. The vet put him down.
After that we never had another dog but Pedro. It was too upsetting for every one. It must have upset me a lot because my memory of that time is very detailed, and I was only about 8 at the time.
I never had my own dog until I got Jazz, my 10 pound Chihuahua, when he was 9 weeks old.
One of the reasons I’d wanted to have a dog was to get out and walk more as I was just getting over two painful knee replacement surgeries. Getting a dog, I thought, would be great therapy to strengthen my legs. And it was.
However, before I decided to adopt Jazz, I had to look at my life to be certain I could give him the attention he needed. He barely weighed two pounds, was so small he required four feedings a day to sustain his little body.
I lived close to where I worked so it was easy to come home every day at lunch and feed him. I also had neighbors looking in on him during the day, too. He was so small and I was ultra-concerned about making sure he was okay.
That was 7 years ago.
Today, my life revolves around my animals schedules ( I also have a cat.) I plan my social life around my dog’s feeding and walking-times, as if he were a child. In turn, he is the perfect dog – so happy and fun and wonderful.
If you have a dog, you know what a responsibility it is. Just like a child – you’ve got to care for it, train it, love it. When you love a dog, they repay in kind, but give back so much more. A dog will change your life.
So, I really liked the message from the German Shepard Dog Community on Facebook (below).
Written by Shandell Dugdale and used with the permission of The Calgary Humane Society.
and so this is christmas ….. and so this is chanukah….
And this day, like so many other December 25′s in Florida, is HOT!
Merry Christmas to those who observe it, and best wishes for a happy 6th (I think) day of Chanukah, too.
It’s a very quiet morning. Relaxing. Nice.
Well, Jazz is having a bad morning. My brother’s dog, the gigantic puppy, Buster, as usual, relentlessly pursues Jazz, egging him on with a push of his paw and a little nip on the rear end. When that doesn’t move Jazz, Buster jumps in the air in a “U” shape – his four legs straight up from the ground – go up and over Jazz, only to land and have his legs nipped at by Jazz’s jaws…. snapping, snapping, snapping… Buster is too fast and Jazz’s snapping isn’t precisely aimed but sometimes he manages to get a hold of some part of Buster’s skin. Jazz’s snapping jaws, though they aim at Buster in rapid-fire snaps like a machine gun gone ballistic, don’t do any harm to him though.
It’s hilarious to see them. I can’t decide if Jazz is playing or if he’s petrified because his tail wags but his eyes roll back in his head and his lips stay permanently in place, over his gums. Buster is absolutely playing, that’s clear…. The verdict is still out on Jazz’s level of enjoyment.
This morning the grass was dewy and Jazz refused to step out on the big-grass-john in the backyard. So I picked him up and walked him out further in the grass, getting my fuzzy slippers nice and wet – I put him down on the grass, but he immediately tip-toed away, gingerly in the grass like a ballet dancer with a broken toe, back to the patio and dry ground. He tiptoed, broken-toed style, through the screen door and to the pool area where he proceeded to do you know what right by the pool.
The morning is quiet. Mom and my brother are reading the paper – the New York Times. And a John Wayne movie is on the TV, in the background.
Last night we watched the Oldie Goldie movie “Margie.” It was shot in 1946, and shows a grown-up Margie reminiscing about her high school years in the 1920’s, to her teen-aged daughter.
The setting was 1928 and a young Margie, a senior in high school, keeps losing her “bloomers” to great dramatic effect. Seriously, the elastic in her bloomers broke three times in the movie! It wasn’t really a theme – ha! Or any sub-plot, per se, but each loss of one of her errant bloomers did push the plot ahead. One especially “dramatic” bloomer loosening happened on the ice-skating rink. To cover the embarrassment of losing her bloomers, Margie feigns fainting.
Oh Fiddlesticks! was Margie’s refrain when things were confusing or got out of hand - or when one’s bloomers were unruly.
Of course today it would be, “Oh, isn’t this a farting-fuck! Shit, I lost my thong,” purposely getting as many swear words into the sentence as possible then publicly pronouncing and publishing the event all over Facebook. Whereas Margie, humiliated, horrified, is overcome with tears at her bloomer bust.
Anyway, the movie was very sweet. Haddie McDaniel played the housekeeper. Jeanne Crain, was Margie. Haddie McDaniel, you may remember, won the Academy Award for her performance as “Mammy” in Gone with the Wind.
I’m not sure what is in store for the rest of the day. I know the dog-park is on our agenda and my brother is cooking us a nice lunch….kind of scary, to be honest. He’ll probably need an editor. Well mom is here – thankfully, I’m hardly a cook and proud of it!
Anyway, that’s a piece of my 2011 Christmas. I’d like to share the funniest story, written by my niece, about her plane trip from New York to Tallahassee. It’s so damn funny – brilliant humor, and I am not being prejudiced, you’ll see:
Meaghan O’Connell:
So I’m on this flight from NYC to Charlotte today, it’s super-delayed on the tarmac and I’m sitting next to two people about my age who did not know each other but talked so loud that I shared that ugh i know ARE THEY EVEN HUMAN? look about them with two separate people. I would give some examples of their conversation but it would be too painful for me to revisit. Okay wait I can’t help but remember: the girl kept joking about us being in the exit row and DYING and when there was turbulence she was like, “Am I going to have to pull this lever?” (to open the door!) and I had just read that fucking, fucking article about the french guys crashing the plane in the Atlantic and it was all I could think about (this plane crashing) meanwhile this unstable woman with a extra large coolatta was making jokes about pulling open the goddamn emergency exit.
Anyway so halfway through I really have to pee and I’m telling myself stuff like, “Okay, as soon as you finish this chapter, you can pee.” (along with musing about how I’d react if I found out the plane was going down) Then I realized I could pee when I wanted because I am an adult human so I put my book away and started sheepishly assessing the situation. See, the seatbelt light was on but I always forget if that means Don’t move around or, Fine move around but if you’re sitting down, put on your seatbelt. I figured it was the latter because that’s what I wanted so I found a way to justify it. Then I looked right and left. No one was up and about to reassure me I wouldn’t get “in trouble.” I craned my neck to see what the fight attendi were doing. They buckled in in the back, but I decided to LIVE ON THE EDGE and then to go to the bathroom in the front since it was closer and there was some turbulence but fuck it right? I’m an adult.
So I got up half-expecting to get yelled at (as always) but creeped on forward in my newish boots and then stopped and stood frozen under the glowing green bathroom sign when I couldn’t find the fucking door to push in and crawl inside. Ahhh. I felt the eyes of every human on the plane on me while I squinted into dark corners and wondered if I was about to walk into the cockpit . but was like whatever guys, I can do this. Then a flight attendant from the back GRABS THE MIC and says in a fluster, JUST A REMINDER THAT THE FIRST CLASS LAVATORIES ARE RESERVED FOR FIRST CLASS PASSENGERS ONLY.
Cut to me wandering around first class like a lost puppy. This lady is basically telling me, from the back of the plane, over the loudspeaker to get the fuck out of the first class section. WHAT? So I SPIN around on my heels (rather amazingly I might add) to face THE ENTIRE PLANE, shrug dramatically and say SORRY EVERYONE! in the most teenage, sarcastic tone of voice. I don’t even know where this audacity came from. But I saw this sea of faces staring at me and rolling their eyes at the situation and laughing with me and literally like, making little comments of solidarity as I walked past. Like I just committed this brave act, crossing enemy lines to pee into a little toilet vacuum. I mean people were truly making eye contact and saying like, “Come ON!” and, “Oh like they are all just LINED UP up there waiting to get into the bathroom!” And I just nodded and shrugged and wanted to like, high five everyone as I cruised by, but instead made some kind of bad kid in the back of the class type of dramatic exhalations then sauntered, victoriously, all the way to the back of the godforsaken plane, where the flight attendants would not look at me, and peed in my proletariat toilet (proletoilet).
Anyway there was total class warfare going on in the sky somewhere over, I dunno, Virginia, today and it was amazing.
Link to above: http://meaghano.com/post/14595368874/impt
don’t let the bed bugs bite!
There’s a wonderful boat tour in Winter Park that traverses Lake Osceola and some of the little canals that finger off of it. The canals wind around some of the beautiful estates and the boat-houses that go with them.
We were all over the lake and it was a perfect day to be on the water - sunny, with just a bit of a cool wind. It was lovely.
I was particularly looking forward to photographing the flora and the fauna, the magnificent trees, and the abundant variety of birds that populate the lake.
Unfortunately, I forgot to change my camera lens for the trip. I had the macro lens on the camera, but needed a zoom. I still got some fairly good pictures, but not many. Soooooo if there is time, I will simply have to go back and do the trip all over again!
When I have a chance to go back, hopefully on Monday, I’ll share pictures of the lovely trees that are just covered with Spanish Moss. I did get one good one of the Spanish Moss, below.
Isn’t it amazing? The tour guide on our boat told us that the term “Don’t let the bed-bugs bite,” literally resulted from using Spanish Moss to stuff mattresses! Back then, apparently, the moss was not cleaned before it was stuffed in mattresses and pillows. The items were sold bugs and all.
Ford Motor company stuffed their car seats with the Spanish Moss, too. When an entire fleet of Ford autos were recalled as a result of customers complaining of bugs and bug-bites, the slogan, “Itching to drive a Ford” was born!
I’m sending you a Christmas tree. Well, a wannabe Christmas Tree, I suppose! It’s really a Cypress tree standing in the middle of the lake. Someone has attached ornaments to it and I can’t resist sharing it and wishing everyone a joyous holiday.
Sending you warm wishes for a merry Christmas and a happy fifth day of Chanukah!
A holiday Cypress
