Random portraits

February 13, 2017 cthulu Leave a comment

After much ado, I changed my ancient desktop computer to a minimally newer model. I didn’t go into the big box computer store to be insulted, but this was provided free of charge. I persevered in my attempt to conquer technology, but I don’t have a brilliant or cohesive post for this week. So in lieu of that I am offering up random portraits from the past two weeks.

We’ve had some fine spring-like weather, with warm updrafts that are perfect for soaring and flirting (the other hawk slipped out of view). This is one of the hawks that lives on the hill behind my house.

This is one of the dinosaurs posing with a basket of roses. I’m not really sure what this dino was up to!

I was waiting for the phone to ring at a charity fundraiser. I must have been completely bored to take a photo of myself. Also there is not much interesting to photograph about a line of phones.

This smiling building with a banana split flying overhead was rather unsurprisingly taken at an ice cream shop. This local business offers gigantic portions and stays busy. I enjoyed a late night mango gelato under his friendly gaze.

Wildlife

The gang

February 5, 2017 cthulu Leave a comment

I think that Rosa has become the matriarch of the neighborhood herd. She is certainly the friendliest and least fearful of the local deer. That is Adele standing in the background, she is a little skittish and is ready to bolt at the slightest thing.

Adele does have a sweet face to go along with her shy disposition.

Tamara (the lame) used to be the matriarch of the group. But she has a crooked leg, so she is just not as swift as the other bunch. She has been hanging around for a couple of years, so I know she is older than the other does.

This is one of the youngsters of the group. I call her the angry deer because of the eyebrows, but she’s not really angry. She’s the oldest of the youngsters, I think and the offspring of Tamara. She’s medium skittish, but always glad to see me.

This was the view out my front window one day last week. The herd makes the best sort of lawn ornaments!

Doings

Hockey

February 1, 2017 cthulu Leave a comment

I had an invite to a college hockey game, the local team was playing North Dakota. M and I used to live in North Dakota, a hockey-mad state, so we often used to come to the games to see them when they played here. The local team is not very good, there were lots of empty seats and there were definitely more people in the seats wearing green ND jerseys.

My friend and I were sitting behind the home goal, and both teams spent a lot of time at this end.

And it was a tremendously exciting game, the opponents had 47 shots on goal and did not score. The local team, from an expensive private college, scored in the second period and had two empty net goals at the very end. The ND fans were stunned by this turn of events, but because they are nice people from a nice place, they weren’t rude about it. The interesting part about their team is they were formerly known as “the fighting Sioux” (named after a Native American tribe). Their ice arena was donated to the school, and the Sioux emblem is everywhere. But the NCAA (collegiate sports governing body) forced the team to change to name to “the fighting Hawks”. I did not see a single jersey with a hawk on them. 😉

I saw the name on this player’s jersey and I immediately wanted to take his picture. Pool boys are an urban myth, (like in the movie “Adventures of a Window Cleaner”) but Poolman was real, and there were two of them.

Doings, Ephemera

More Gallery People

January 29, 2017 cthulu Leave a comment

Once again I saw in the newspaper the magic words “free” and “gallery opening”, so off I went (there was even free parking!). This exhibit promised fiber and women’s work in art so I thought it might actually be something I was interested in. And at this opening I actually ran into people I know, more traditional fiber artists.

The shaggy beast mounted on the wall is the art, and I was rather disappointed that there was a lot more wall space than hanging art.

These lost souls were reading the gallery notes to try and discover what it was they were looking at.

A hipster wearing a hat, he obviously has never heard of the fact that one doesn’t need a hat in a place where it doesn’t rain.

This show had better food than the last one I went to, that’s a lovely baked brie with delicious dates and fresh fruit in the background. There was also guacamole and chips, ice tea and lemonade for the youngsters, and beer and wine for the elders. Once again they forgot to ask me for my ID to prove that I am over 21. 😉

And this is me, once again capturing the shadows.

Ephemera

Wind

January 22, 2017 cthulu Leave a comment

I alluded to the fact that it was amazingly windy two weeks ago. How amazingly windy? Well, whoever keeps track of these things recorded a wind speed of 100 mph on the south end of town by the Army base. We occasionally get winds of up to 60 mph, but this is pretty rare even. So the big blow was a big deal, it even made the national news.

This is from my neighborhood, two large trees that went together, fortunately missing the house. I have a lot of trees on my lot, and they are all still standing, this guy was not so lucky.

This tree is across the street from one of my friends. It broke in half, again missing the house. A pine tree my friend had planted in her back yard 35 years before also blew over. But she is a resourceful sort, and she and the hubby reduced these to to a large pile of firewood.

There was also numerous semi trucks (lorries), fences and signs that blew over, and lots of roofs lost their shingles. I had one tile come loose, which is not too bad, but I still haven’t fixed it. The sad part is that now everyone’s insurance will go up, even though this was an uncommon event. But we’ll just plant more trees and life will go on.

Art, Ephemera

Gallery people

January 18, 2017 cthulu Leave a comment

I hadn’t been out much because of the weather. I saw a listing in the newspaper (yes I still read a physical newspaper, digital is just not the same) for a gallery opening, and most importantly, it said “free”. So off I went and miraculously found a place to park as well.

The most interesting part to me was that it was full of hipsters. One doesn’t see these walking around very much, at least not at the sort of place I frequent.

This is the tarot card reader telling the fortune of this young man (you will graduate from college someday, and get a job) She was wearing this stylish black jumpsuit and some wicked looking high heels, not the sort of thing you see everyday.

The reason that there was a tarot card reader was because that was what the exhibit was about. Someone got the idea to make “black power” tarot cards. I’m not sure how this is different from any other tarot, but the artists did get to show their work and probably got paid as well.

There was an experimental (plot-less) film showing on one wall and I heard the term “white privilege” bandied about. I could tell who the filmmaker was, he was the man wearing a scarf casually wound around his neck (not pictured unfortunately).

One of the artists.

There was the usual sort of swill to drink, by which I mean delicious Bulgarian wine. They had a sign to indicate that one needed to show proof of age to be able to imbibe, but they forgot to ask me for some reason. 😉 And of course there must be some sort of nibbles to go along with event. There were roasted beet appetizers and this lovely cake, the shadow is me, just drifting through this event.

Ephemera, Life

Books

January 13, 2017 cthulu 1 Comment

We’ve had a run of bad weather, first it was ice and snow, then it was gale force winds. And what does one need to get through a stretch of bad weather? Some people rush to the stores to get bread, milk and eggs, but I need to to have a lovely pile of books to set by my bed. So this is what I have been reading.

I haven’t gotten too far in Ancient Worlds, but The Invention of Murder is quite interesting. One of the many points she makes is about the number of murders that take place in the novels of Charles Dickens. She cites the original source material Dickens used, and it makes me wonder why Dickens is still popular (sort of, it’s considered literature, and good for one) while his other contemporaries have fallen out of favor.

Rain Dogs is a mystery (my favorite genre) set in Ireland (which is almost as good as an English mystery). Of course I love Terry Pratchett, this is one of his witches novels. I did see a list recently in The Guardian where people talked about their favorite laugh out loud novels and I was surprised that his work was not included. Go figure.

There was not too much to read in this book, but it had some great inspiration to it.

The quilting book also had some inspiring art, perhaps I will give this a go again sometime (I do have a rather large pile of unfinished quilts). And the last book pictured is about French culture, it could be handy if I ever go back to France (in real life, not just in my imagination). These were enough to get me through some rough weather, and now there is more possibly on the way. I’m ready for that too.

Mountains

Old year

January 5, 2017 cthulu Leave a comment

It’s a snowy and miserable day to be outside today, so I thought that I would share some pictures taken last year, on Dec 30th. My friends asked me if I wanted to take a stroll through our most famous city park and I immediately said “Yes!”. As it was sunny and warmish I didn’t even need to wear a jacket and it was ever so pleasant a day to be walking about.

There are beautiful views of the mountain from the park; what I am not showing is that we were hardly alone in enjoying this gorgeous day.

The park has these lovely vertical cliffs that were caused by the mountain pushing it’s way to the surface. Again what I am not showing is the crowds of tourists swarming over the rocks, quite near the signs saying that this is dangerous.

The cliffs have lots of handholds and toe holds so that they are possible to climb up without any special equipment, but, it is quite a different matter to get down. So the fire department has to come and rescue people from time to time.

They are lovely and mysterious, looming overhead. And one could spend endless time photographing them (I personally have jillions of photos). One photographer was fined for cutting down a tree so that no one else could take the same photo as he. But I am a casual observer, so after a few shots (okay, the batteries ran out in my camera), it was off to lunch.

Ephemera, Life

New Year

January 1, 2017 cthulu Leave a comment

New Year’s Eve comes with it’s own set of traditions, and some of my dinosaurs posed last year for this shot to illustrate them. One tradition is the wearing of crowns, tiaras and silly hats. Top hats have not been worn by regular people in my lifetime, but they persist as festive wear, a symbol of the holiday. Such is the power of tradition. People also have plenty of superstitions about what to eat on New Year’s Day to bring health and wealth (but mainly wealth).

And of course the other tradition is to drink champagne (or other alcohol) in copious quantities at midnight. Also to make resolutions for the year, some sort of self improvement; like to resolve not to stay up until midnight drinking champagne.

Here in town we have another tradition. A bunch of old guys hike up the mountain and set off fireworks at midnight. As this is a social event too, they have staff and support people, but they still have to climb to the top of the mountain on a snowy trail. As the top of the mountain is far away from town, it’s not quite as impressive a display as sitting underneath the fireworks on the 4th of July. But I applaud their efforts, and as it is a tradition I stayed up until midnight to watch this. [Sorry there are no pictures, it was dark out 😉 ]

The dinosaurs were not feeling quite as festive this year, but they and I do want to wish everyone a Happy New Year.

Toys

Batteries not included

December 28, 2016 cthulu Leave a comment

When I dragged out my Christmas stuff after all these years, I came across Bowser Holly, a delightful part of the Christmas decorations.

Of course I originally bought him (I can tell it’s a boy by the voice) because he reminded me of Miss P and I would tease her with him. And after I found a small Phillips head screwdriver, replaced the batteries and removed the corrosion, he started to sing again. He sings and barks his way through “Deck the Halls” in a very engaging version.

This is my other singing battery operated Christmas decoration/toy that I got two years ago. I include him in Christmas just because he is a reindeer wearing a scarf. He sings “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”, not a very seasonal tune. But he is cute and he claps his hands and raises his ears, and is generally adorable.

The Three Stooges are not part of Christmas, but they do have batteries so I’m including them in this post. These were sold as “dog toys”, although they are quickly demolished by any competent dog. (I sent a set to my fellow Stooge fan and brother. His dog took an instant dislike to Larry and killed him at the first opportunity). They don’t have any moving parts, but when squeezed they feature voices of the actors.

Dear Rex is the senior among these battery operated marvels. I probably bought him in 1985, and he has gotten a little arthritic over the years. But his eyes still glow and his jaws still move. He is the king of the collection. He is somewhat modeled on Godzilla, and as I recently argued on Facebook, Godzilla is part of Christmas too (at least if you live in Japan, where he is part of every holiday).

flytippings