me, stinson beach, california, february 2007

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more black & white self portraits here.

scanner.....still......down.........can't............put............in...............new.......strips.....

So this old sweet one will have to do :) Makes me think of Summer time and ice cream. Have a great weekend all. I'll be back next week to show my mail love from Nessie - let the suspense-killing-you commence!!

(more photoboothies here and here.)

whale watching, kauai, february 2006

I arose this morning and started to search through my self portraits to find one that was most representative of how I was feeling. It has been a little rough around here. My raw edges have been showing - tears shed for the lack. I feel that I have struggled my entire life with the ache and tug of the elusive 'something more' and it has been especially acute for the last thirty six hours. I do make a concerted effort most days to be in the moment, to appreciate the half full glass instead of it's dark cousin. Truth be told, I do not succeed as often as I would like.

But then, while searching...

I stumbled across my photo file named 'HAWAII!' and realized that one year ago to the day my precious PickleBoy and I were on our way to Kauai for his first visit to the Islands. We spent an entire glorious week there. You would naturally assume that a week in Kauai would be 'glorious' but we were up against challenges from the start.

It rained the entire time, we saw no whales on our whale watching trip, our helicopter ride was fraught with danger and screeching warning bells, the Hanakapiai trail was too muddy and precarious to hike but guess what we did? We loved up every single minute.

When it rained - we put the top down on the rental Jeep and drove in the rain with flowers in our hair. When there were no whales we took pictures of ancient and glorious cliffs and the dolphins that surrounded us. When the warning bells went off in the helicopter, I took a long panicked look at my child (and the pilot) and then started laughing and shooting more photos. When the trail was too muddy, we went and stood in the warm salty ocean instead and giggled as brightly colored fish swam between our knees. We were surrounded all week by disgruntled people who spoke loudly of wasted time and money and we just looked at each other and smiled because we were so happy.

By the last day we were tired, maybe even a little bit ready to go home. It was four o'clock on a bleary rainy afternoon. The beach was deserted and the breeze was cold. PB ran up from the water and asked if I would swim with him one last time. I begged off - I was just too cold - the sky was just too grey. And then, as I watched him return to the water alone I heard the voice in my head say "get off your butt this one last time and swim with your kid silly woman!" And as we laughed and frolicked around in the waves that one last time - me facing the shore, PB smiling at me and the open ocean - his face lit up and he yelled "LOOK MAMA!!!" and I turned to see a huge majestic sea turtle not three feet away. It swam with us and shared it's magic momentarily. We screamed with joy and then - I cried. Salty happy tears that this - THIS - was life and we were truly living it.

Having perspective may be scary sometimes but it is honest and true and the way I choose to live. If you keep faith and perspective when times are rough, then joy and miracles can be found anywhere. And, if you are very lucky, the water in that half full glass will be salty.

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local hawaiian ice cream from lapperts

the napali coast

PickleBoy's sunset

the kilauea lighthouse

just plain happy.

I celebrate this day.
The day you entered the world, dear friend.
Happiest of happy birthdays to you.
You are a gift to me.

pancake love.

From me to you on this auspicious day,
my favorite love song...

Somersault
by Zero 7
(to hear it click here and then enter site, wait until the player appears on right, scroll down song list and play!)

"You're the prince to my ballerina
You feed other people's parking meters
You encourage the eating of ice cream
You would somersault in sand with me

You talk to loners, you ask how's your week
You give love to all and give love to me
You're obsessed with hiding the sticks and stones
When I feel the unknown
You feel like home, you feel like home

You put my feet back on the ground
Did you know you brought me around
You were sweet and you were sound
You saved me

You're the warmth in my summer breeze
You're the ivory to my ebony keys
You would share your last jelly bean
You would somersault in sand with me

You put my feet back on the ground
Did you know you brought me around
You were sweet and you were sound
You saved me

You put my feet back on the ground
Did you know you brought me around
You were sweet and you were sound
See I had shrunk yet still you wore me around
And 'round and 'round."

And PickleBoy loves you, too.

LeS through the viewfinder, 2007.

I have waxed poetic about the sometimes eerie/always fabulous photography phenom known as 'Through the Viewfinder' here before. I cannot seem to get enough of this way to capture an image. I think it is partly because I am a bit of purist when it comes to altering photographs other than the ever-handy crop with an occasional bump to the the color saturation/contrast thrown in.

Using the TtV process distorts the image before the shutter is ever released and, therefore, seems more 'contraptiony' and artistic than 'computery' to me. Having said that, I was lucky enough to receive Photoshop CS2 as a christmas gift from my girl B. Once I sink my teeth into that properly I may change my tune a little :).

But until then, some of the fruits of my TtV labor can be found in my 'i want my TtV' set over at Flickr. I joined the 'Through The Viewfinder' group on Flickr as well. Heck, this Saturday has even been dubbed 'World TtV Day' and I plan to get out there with my cameras and contraptions to feed this lovely obsession.

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More black & white selves are here.

The maconBar.

PickleBoy and I got hooked on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show on the Travel Channel several years ago. We have tivo'd from the very start. So much excitement around here when the third season began several weeks ago. Even more excitement when we learned that Adam had not yet watched the show. We decided that the perfect episode to indoctrinate him would be 'Pacific Northwest' as he travels to Seattle on business now and then.

Results:
Adam indoctrinated on Anthony?
Not so much.
All of us indoctrinated on some of the places Anthony visited?
SO much.

The above-pictured item is our version of the maple bars with bacon on top from Voodoo Donuts in Portland that Mr. Bourdain was good enough to share with us. We named our version the maconBar (maple+bacon+bar - yikes). PB uses this photo as his gmail icon and Adam used this photo as his desktop shot at work. It has taken on a life of it's own. Emailed to people I have not met in ever-widening circles to who knows how many more people. And did it taste good? Ask the boys...they loved it! I took one bite for posterity and am still suffering from some measure of decadence guilt.

In the same episode Anthony visits a fantastic place called Piroshky Piroshky at the Public Market in Seattle. Instead of trying to recreate these beauties, Adam flew back from there yesterday with three fresh piroshkies nestled in his bag as a surprise and, oh dear, they were heaven...

Piroshky Piroshky piroshkies

So now that we are working our way through the episode I have decided that I want this next. See ya' in Portland!

me.

This self portrait reminds me a bit of this photo
of one of my most favorite men in this world.

(February's self portrait challenge is black and white - other interpretations here.)

Artist of the Week
Nina Simone

Song and Video of the Week
I'm Feeling Good


Music Anecdote of the Week
This is entirely self explanatory.
Won't you join me?

Dang scanner broke on me this morning. And right when I had a new strip to share. I don't believe the acrid smell of burning chemicals and plastic bodes well even if I did unplug it before I started to see smoke.

So instead of freshly trimmed hair and the crafty 'hear no evil, speak no evil' photobooth antics I mustered earlier this week, you get to revisit the first ever photobooth photo I posted to the blog. Because, damn, if this photo of my sister and I isn't one of the funniest things I've ever seen. And after all, at the end of the day, the ability to amuse oneself is a vital pleasure.

Please do visit hula seventy, the originator of photobooth friday, here or the new flickr group she started up here. And then proceed into a good weekend with vigor.