Photoessay #2062 - Sandy at sixty

I had to do this head shot anyway.  I'll have a short piece published in Your Teen, which is print and on-line out of northern Ohio.  How did I find them?  Months ago when I was spending more time placing my finished pieces (rather than being mired in Maier), I just goggled "parenting teens journals" or similar and wrote them cold.

They wrote back; they were looking for parents who were coping with prescription drug and/or heroin abuse in their teens.  Turns out I knew such people; they each wrote short pieces that were accepted.

They look for short (800) word 'parenting experience' essays.  So I took a 3k word piece and really (I mean really!) cut it down.  Sent it in, didn't hear anything until last week.

But they want a head shot.  Gulp.  So I convinced Dennis to take a picture, I tried to fix my hair, put some makeup on.  Put some my pretty pink rhody bush as background.  Decided not to wear my glasses, even though I have some kind of glasses on a lot.

So here's our best effort.  Reasonably ok considering.

So, in a act of true bravery I post this picture plus my age.

Interesting, these last several months, when I have chat with others my same age, they all say "have you had that birthday yet?"  And we all know what that means.

I know that none of us could imagine ourselves at sixty back in the day.  Can we imagine our children at sixty?

Photoessay #2061 - SIFF

On Saturday, we took Melina to a movie (The Painting)  at SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival).  Runs for about 3 weeks.  459 films.  They always have a snappy little intro that they run before each film.  During that showing, I put up my camera and took stills as it ran.

Again on Auto.   This one came out the best.  An example of what they throw at you real fast and a whole bunch of it.

Naomi was here; we mowed the front lawn; definitely a team effort.  Other than that I've been working on my 'not white' piece which will be in Theo's second anthology.  I've also returned to the main Maier Zunder paper for another revision.  Anne read the whole devotional exercise paper, it still needs a preface and a snappy scene to get interest.  It's a good start but still needs a lot of work.

Photoessay #2060 - Blue blue sky

You hardly ever see such a blue sky and brilliant light here in Seattle.  I fooled around with the settings yesterday.  I often fool around with the settings on my camera (not a SLR) rarely getting anywhere.  Nope, just figured it out.  This picture was shot on AUTO.  A beautiful afternoon no doubt about it. 

A rhododendron with cream colored blooms shot from a low angle at the Japanese Garden in Seattle.  I wanted to catch that sky.  Shot right out of the camera, I didn't modify it at all.

And it has an easter egg.  Can you see it?

Yes, the bee, shown below, again no change made to the original image.

Photoessay #2059 - Million Melinas

This morning we took Melina to one of the 'family' SIFF movies.  The Painting.  Excellent, beautiful at the Egyptian Theater just off Broadway.  They had two mirrors across from each other.  Yup, you can get that reflection into the ages.  This shot, is not technically very good; not in sharp focus.

But Melina is standing in front and I'm trying to get the reflection thing going off into the distance.  Melina, when she looked at the picture said "is that the way I look from the back?"

Melina got very excited about a movie from Cambodia at SIFF.  Actually, it's a retrospective of the Cambodian film industry pre Khmer Rouge.  It would be tricky to get her there but we could do it.

Afterwards we had a picnic lunch by the Japanese garden, went to the garden then did some letterboxing in the arboretum.  Set of seven boxes, we found six.  Which means lots of rummaging around in brush .  Roots and Shoots out of Redmond does a good job though!

Gorgeous day, glad we spent the afternoon outside.

And the Oregon Ducks are on their way to the Women's College World Series, winning two from Texas today in the super-regional.  Whoo hoo!

Photoessay #2058 - They're at it again

Teddy the dog and Starbaby the cat, they like each other.  When the sun comes out, those two like to go out and sun-bathe.  You can tell that a dog helped with the kittens when Starbaby was little.  She likes Teddy.  She liked our previous dog Shadow.

Sometimes she likes the dog to kind of rough her up and drag her around.  She trains them to do it.  Weird kitty.

But here's some recent scenes in our backyard.  Some major love going on in the sunshine.

Photoessay #2057 - Potent photo

This picture appeared in today's Seattle Times. Taken three years ago, it shows President Obama bending down to let a young boy feel his hair. The boy's father, a White House staff member was leaving the Administration. By tradition, departing White House staffers can ask for a family photo with the President. Here, the family, all dressed up, visit the President's office for the picture taken by White House photographer Pete Souza.  The father told President Obama that each of his sons had a question to ask him and added that he didn't know the question. His older son(11) asked why the President had eliminated the F22 fighter jet .  The five year old also had a question.

"I want to know if my hair is just like yours," he told Obama, so quietly that the president asked him to speak again.

Jacob did, and Obama replied, "Why don't you touch it and see for yourself?"

He brought his head level with Jacob, who hesitated
.
"Touch it, dude!" Obama said.

As Jacob patted the presidential crown, Souza snapped.

"So, what do you think?" Obama asked.

"Yes, it does feel the same," Jacob said.

 The article pointed out that the photo is a favorite despite its awkward composition, the parents' heads are cut off, the boy's hand obscures his face and the older son is blurry.

Doesn't matter, the photographer captured the image which continues to be a favorite.

Sometimes, a picture just jumps out of the camera, sometimes in a surprising manner.

Photo by Pete Souza from the Seattle Times used without permission

Photoessay #2056 - Mountains

As I work here, mired in Maier--well I can sort of see the end of this paper, it's longer than I thought, already 11K words.  I think some of it can be cut.  It's just an endeavor.

How about a beautiful  picture of some northwest mountains.  We've got the rugged Cascades and Olympics.  But, amazingly, they are so much lower than the Sierra Nevadas.

I'm using Ilana's friend Erynn's fine pictures; she usually lets me use them so we'll call it good.  She does beautiful photography.  These look like the Olympics to me but what do I know!

Photoessay #2055 - UAB coming up!

Susanna at Megan's graduation party the other weekend.  Wearing the new UAB shirt that I bought her.  University of Alabama Birmingham.  One of those idea that's just so crazy that it just might work.  Now, to us, in the northwest, Birmingham Alabama is beyond the known universe, in another galaxy, you wouldn't really go there.

As a reality check when I mentioned U Alabama Birmingham to people in the Florida, it sounded perfectly plausible.  Like hearing that somebody is going to Oregon State.

But the out of state tuition for their professional OT program....well let's just say that it makes Yale look cheap.  And I thought the out of state fee for University of Michigan was insane.  But my girl has worked so hard for several years to get into an accredited OT program and this is the one that accepted her...so we're going for it.

I admit, I'm the one who would chide parents for letting their children apply for expensive schools when they couldn't pay for them.  But that assumes that there are other perfectly fine options that would work.  I think she came reasonably close to being admitted to the program at Eastern Washington in Spokane.  Closer, wayyyyyyy cheaper, Susanna liked the people and the place.  What's not to like?  Except they didn't accept her.

But after giving her a spot for the interview at the last minute when somebody dropped out, waitlisting her and then offering her a spot.  Well, that's the one, then.  Either that or no OT program this year.  And when you've done an all out apply-for-graduate-school campaign, you don't want to have to do it all AGAIN.  So UAB it is.  I think it impressed them that somebody would travel all the way from Seattle to Birmingham Alabama on short notice for a grad school interview.

Go Blazers!

PS you may be wondering, with 4 kids including 3 daughters attending college, how many colleges have we paid bucks to.  NOT including community college.  (in no particular order)

University of Washington
Washington State University
Central Washington University
University of Oregon
University of Michigan
University of Alabama, Birmingham

Do I get a patch for this?

Photoessay #2054 - Bush left for dead

I had declared this azalea as dead three or so years ago when we had a big heat wave.  I know, I know, anything over 75 here is considered a heat wave.  But it got over 100 degrees here one day.  We even held Parent Group out the cement in front of the church, it was so hot.  This bush, it looked bad, real bad.   Like dead.  But because I never pull anything up, I just babied it along.  And look, years later, it's blooming its little heart out.  A little lopsided  maybe but still!