Fear of flying?

I have been feeling rather uninspired lately and I tried to remedy that by looking up what other people had to say about inspiration.  That’s how I ran across this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt, which was filed under "inspiration" on the internet:  “Do one thing every day that scares you.”

  It kind of made me chuckle because I manage to do my one thing every morning as I get out of bed.  Just looking the world in the face is enough most mornings to scare me.  After all, who knows each day what that darn world will throw at you?  But is scary actually inspirational?

Well, while it’s not really scary except in the photographic sense, here the world had thrown me three dreary days in a row without a lick of sun until today.  Today right after I came back from my morning walk with the Olive, the pug, during which I had to put my camera away under my jacket so it wouldn’t get rained on, all of a sudden the sun came out.  I cursed.  Why couldn’t it have come out ten minutes earlier??

A little later, Greg and I went out to lunch at a local joint that sits by the Quinnebaug River.  As we were leaving, I saw a blue heron standing in the river.  Greg humored me when I asked him to turn around and once he stopped, I jumped down from the truck. Now, that’s really scary for me being much shorter than that darn truck, but I’ve yet to be inspired by it.  I walked over to take a picture of the heron.  This time, the sun was in exactly the wrong spot and all I could see were silhouettes making the heron look like a stick sticking out of the water.  Ten minutes earlier and I probably could have gotten a half-decent shot.

  Oh, well..

In spite of the dreariness of the last few days and my lack of inspiration, I have gotten a couple of shots I can live with.  Here they are.

This photo is greatly enhanced by the use of one of Kim Klassen's textures.  Thanks, Kim!

Even dreariness has its moments.

Now I’ll leave you with the words from one of my favorite writers, Neil Gaiman.

  He wrote, “Sometimes you wake up.  Sometimes the fall kills you.  And sometimes, when you fall, you fly.”

  Here’s hoping we all sprout wings.

LINKING TO KIM KLASSEN'S 

TEXTURE TUESDAY.

No kidding…

Sometimes as a family we find ourselves having pretty ludicrous conversations.  Yesterday at lunch, we found ourselves talking about what would happen if two different creatures of similar species managed to procreate together.  You know, like when a male donkey mates with a female horse.

  Eventually, out comes a mule.

How this conversation came about is that Carrie was trying to recall the acronym for remembering biological classifications.   And how that thread started, I can’t dredge out of my grey matter.  I would need more than acronym to summon that from the recesses.

Anyhow, the acronym for remembering biological classifications usually starts with the words “King Phillip.”  For example, King Philip Came Over For Good Soup (Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.)  Another one Evan found on the Interweb was “King Philip Can Often Find Good Sex.”  King Philip was quite the guy, apparently, rather a randy gourmand.

So one thing led to another and we found ourselves wondering what would happen if a human mated with a chimpanzee, since chimps are our closest relatives in the animal world.  Apparently, according to some website or another, we Hales weren’t the first to think of that possibility and the offspring has been named even though it has not yet existed that we know of.  A Human/Chimpanzee is apparently going to be a Manpanzee once someone manages to get man and chimp together.  Then, letting our imaginations go wild, we decided that if Olive, the pug, fell in love with a chimp, she would have a Pugpanzee.  Personally, I think it is a good thing that Olive has been spayed.

We decided that though it would be very tall, the Giraffe/Human variation wouldn’t really make a good basketball player because they would be more neck than leg.  But we liked the name:  Girman.

Then there’s the Manoose, that is Man with Moose and the Manilla, that is Man with Gorilla.  One of those could also be called a Gorman.  My particular favorite is the Humantelope – Human and Antelope, of course.  And there’s the Mankey – Human and Monkey.

Oh!  (I almost forgot) the Humanatee!  That is the Human and the Manatee together at last.  Greg’s contribution.

Well, it’s a good thing we finished eating because it could go on and on and on…   But when you really think about it, we humans, as “intelligent” beings, will probably possess the ability to make some of those combinations possible in the future.  It will kind of make the question about what came first, the chicken or the egg, rather irrelevant.

But speaking of eggs, we got home on Wednesday afternoon to find a dozen eggs on our doormat, a gift from our neighbors the Caldwells who raise and nurture chickens.  We have some great neighbors of the purely human variety!

Sharing the birds…

I had a busy weekend.  But it was blah and uneventful as far as my camera was concerned.  I took fewer than 100 photos, which may be an all time low for me.  But I manage to eke out two rather boring shots for my Flickr 365 so I was happy about that.

Yesterday afternoon I was involved in photography in a different way.  I helped my daughter Carrie frame her photos for an upcoming exhibit in Northampton, Massachusetts.  She and her fellow photographers from the Northampton Camera Club will have photos displayed at Historic Northampton in an exhibit called “Northampton as We See It” from December 12, 2013 to January 25, 2014.  Carrie’s photos are very good and I’m not saying that just because I’m her mother.  I think I will ask her to email me a couple to share with you all and you will see for yourselves what a talented daughter I have.

Meanwhile, the birds were super busy at the feeders today.  I think they were trying to keep themselves warm.  But I managed to shoot a few and will share them today.

It’s always nice when the Juncos come back for the winter and one sat in the bush and cooperated so nicely.

Personally, I think the beauty and understated elegance of the female cardinal is second to none.

And the chickadee is always fun to watch even if he is everywhere.

The Life and Times of Olive the Pug: Visiting our NEIGHbors…

Earlier this week we got a nice break in the late fall weather.  The temperatures were in the 60s and the sun was shining bright.  I asked Olive if she would like to take a walk to see if the horses were around.  She said yes, of course.  So off we went.

When we got down to where the horses hang out, they were nowhere in sight.  I told a disappointed Olive that maybe they were eating their lunch or something and we continued on to the turtle pond.  I was surprised to hear creatures plopping into the water but I couldn’t tell if they were turtles or frogs.  That prompted me to make a mental note to find out what happens to turtles and frogs around here when the cold weather hits.  I don’t think I’ve ever known.  Olive and I stood around and admired the still water and the bright sunshine for a while and then turned around to head back home.  It does get dark around here pretty early these days.

As we walked pass the horse field once again, I noticed that one of them noticed us and began to run down the hill to say hi.  Of course, if one comes to say hi, the others follow along pretty quickly being pretty nosy and curious beings.  We hung around for a little while and while I patted some equine noses, Olive scraped around in the dirt to let them know that that side of the fence was theirs and this side of the fence belonged to pugs and their adoring public.

Then we said good-by and they watched us walk away as we headed for home.

Until next time...

Looking a little closer….

Autumn is winding down and most of the bright fall colors are gone.  The color scheme of brown and green is what I see out my window these days.  After the vibrant fall we had, these toned down colors can seem a bit dreary even on a bright and beautiful day like today.  But I know there are still intriguing things to find out there.  One just has to look a little closer.

Look and you might see delicate, gossamer milkweed seeds about to be released upon the wind.

Or gracefully twisted branches that were once hidden by foliage.

Or dried seed pods that make up their own bouquets where their flowers once stood.

Or the nice, bright sparkle of red berries.

Just look...

A Series of Unfortunate (Senior) Events…

Yesterday, Greg and I drove to church together.  It was Sunday, so that probably doesn’t sound so strange to you.  But in truth, we seldom ride together to church.  You see, Greg sings in the choir and on choir Sundays, he has to be there an hour and a half early so I come along later.  On other Sundays, sometimes he decides not to go or I decide not to go.  In total, we probably ride to church together four or five Sundays during the nine month church year.

But yesterday, we rode to Brookfield together.  We sat next to each other through a wonderful service and afterwards drifted over to coffee hour.  At coffee hours, Greg and I rarely talk to the same people at the same time.  Yesterday was no exception.  So, in the middle of a conversation, I glanced up to see Greg, in his coat, leaving the church.  “Look at that,” I said to the person I was talking to, “Greg forgot that we came to church together and he’s leaving.  I’d better go, too.”  Of course, it took another five minutes or so for me to say my goodbyes and to scoot out the door.

I looked down the street.  Sure enough, Greg’s car was gone.  I had to laugh. I mean, I didn’t blame him.  I figured he was on cruise control and just took off.  So I did the logical thing.  I got a ride home with Amy.

Once in Amy’s car, I gave Greg a call to tell him not to worry because I had gotten a ride home.  The call went directly to voice mail.  I put the phone away and chatted with Amy for a while.  All of a sudden I remembered that my phone was on mute because, duh!, we had been in church.  In those few minutes, I had missed a call from Greg who had missed my call because his phone was also on mute because, duh!, we had been in church.  However, he didn’t leave a message.  So about five minutes from our house, I called him back.  This time he answered.  I won’t tell you exactly what he said because your kids might read this, but long story short, he had gone to the package store to get a bottle of wine to take to our friends Rita and Michelle’s house.  We were invited there for brunch after church to see their new house, remember??

Greg came home and collected me.  We got to Rita and Michelle’s a little late but we got there.  Our friends Mary Ann and Rob, who were going to follow us to the house because they forgot to bring the directions, were already there having taken Greg’s directions with them.  Believe it or not, though I forgot I was going there, I had actually printed out the directions and had them with me.  Ultimately, we had no trouble finding the house.

Over brunch, as we were laughing about this Series of Unfortunate (Senior) Events, Rob confessed that he had seen me get into Amy’s car and drive away but didn’t think to stop me.  Greg neglected to tell me he was going over to the package store to get some wine.  And me, I just plain old forgot even though I had the printed directions on me.

We had a lovely brunch and got quite a few laughs out of our misadventures knowing that there are going to be plenty more of them in our futures.  In the end, it all worked out.  But you have to laugh, because, friends, if you can’t laugh about such things, what’s the use of going on?

Here's a photo of Rita's beautiful dog, Jessie, who is also a Senior and can sympathize.

Odds and Ends…

While we were out on our walk this morning, I promised Olive the pug that we would make some pumpkin oatmeal dog cookies later in the day if she would be willing to help out.  If I’m in the kitchen cooking, most likely Olive is sitting on her kitchen bed waiting for me to drop something good to eat on the floor.  Asking was really not necessary.  So this afternoon, we made the cookies and once they cooled down enough for her to try them, Olive gave them two paws up.

The finished product

Olive waiting patiently on her kitchen bed for the cookies to hurry up and cool down.

The other day when we were traveling down the road, we found ourselves in back of a car from Connecticut with a vanity plate that said “Booser.”  I was wondering if they actually meant “Boozer.”  When I pointed it out, Evan noticed that they had a license surround that claimed they were proud alumni of the University of Connecticut.  “That figures,” I said, being a proud resident of Massachusetts.  “No wonder they can’t spell.”   But then, I thought that no one who was an actual boozer would want to advertise that on their license plate so it must mean something else…like one who boos a lot.  Greg thought it must be a play on their name somehow, but I couldn’t think of a name that translates into a nickname Booser.  Boo Radley was the closest I could come up with.  What do you think?

I was having a hard time thinking of something for my Flickr 365 earlier this week and I was in Oxford, Massachusetts, near the cemetery where Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, is buried.  I decided to go take a picture of her headstone.  I’ve been there and I’ve done that before so it felt a little redundant.  Anyhow, long story short, the sun was not cooperating with me that day anyhow and I couldn’t get a good photo of the headstone.  But, I noticed that the shadows were so strong that I could get a picture of myself walking through the woods.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!