i am not making this up

Too often, my life is like a Monopoly game — a bad Monopoly game.

To understand what I am getting at, permit me to describe my Monopoly games with Sue and the kids over this past year (note: these are the only games that I have played in just about forever). I think there have been five games, four anyway, and each has gone the same way.

In the last game, for example, on my first throw of the die, I landed on Chance. I picked up the card and had to pay out. I landed on a few more during the game, or perhaps on Community Chest, with the same results. There are more good cards than bad cards both of these stacks, but almost always, the other players get those good cards, and I get the bad ones. Some cards send people to jail, and I get those too. I also land disproportionately on the Go Directly To Jail square. I am not making this up.

I approach Go with the possibility of picking up $200, but once again, I disproportionately land on either the Luxury Tax or Income Tax, if not both. I am not making this up.

There are both owned and un-owned properties up ahead. You can guess where my roll of the die takes me. But when someone approaches my property, they get a good roll and avoid it. I am not making this up.

I am effectively out of the game in short order with whatever property that I do own, likely mortgaged to pay off my debts. I am not making this up.

Onto my real life. I am not going to dwell on the past but just get into the recent event that triggered this post.

.... um ... changed my mind to describe just one event from the past although it takes place in two parts.

When I was a young lad in Scouts, there was a camping trip planned for one weekend. I loaded my stuff onto the city bus to get to the rendezvous point from which we would be driven to camp. The bus trip had taken the best part of an hour, but I was looking forward to the weekend and took the trip in stride. When I got there, in plenty of time I might add, I was the lone prospective camper. The weekend had been cancelled. Everyone had been notified but not poor John. I am not making this up.

At some later point, they planned a new weekend. I wasn't notified about that either. Nope, not poor John. Everybody else went, but I was forced to stay home. I am not making this up.

Onto the present and the occurrence that gives rise to this post.

I asked for a ring flash for macro photography for my birthday in September. My plan was to use it for indoor winter photography when outdoor opportunities were limited. Therefore, I hadn't used it and had barely even looked at it until now.

But even though it's still November, we have been experiencing weather that is more January-like, and Eastern Ontario has been setting multiple snowfall and cold records. I am not making this up either. Since winter is happening early, I decided to get out the flash over the weekend, which was somewhat earlier that I had previously intended.

Background to a ring flash. It's a circular flash that attaches to the end of the lens. Like this ↓. 

The flash is attached to the lens via a screw-in adapter. I received four such adapters, for difference size lenses. Guess what? You already know, don't you? None of the adapter rings fits my macro lens. I am definitely not making this up.

I don't think the company makes any other adapter rings, or they would have included them. But in some desperation, I thought I would contact then anyway. They have a handy-dandy contact form on their website. I have tried it more than once. It doesn't work. I wish I were making this up.

This is the way it goes for me. The flash was a gift, and I have no invoice. Besides, it's months later anyway. So it is what it is. 

Fortunately, this was not a very expensive unit although it did cost well over $100. Still that's better than the multiple hundreds of dollars that we could have paid. But I wanted keep the cost down while I tried to determine if I would like this sort of photography. Fortunately, I still can use the flash to some degree, for I can handhold the flash as best I can as I experiment with it this winter. If I think that I want to do more flash-enabled macro photography in future, I can invest in a pricier unit in due course.

I swear that I have not made any of this up. I have not embellished for the sake of the narrative. I don't have to embellish because this is the way that life has often gone for me. But please don't see this as a pity party because many good things have happened too. For example, there's ...