Just a Few Birthday Pics

Shooting birthdays and such occasions in low and mixed light is not what one looks forward too, but when all is said and done, these photos are the stuff that may endure. Whatever pretty photos that I have will soon be lost to the mists of time, but family photos will tend to hang around.

Getting that background whimsical palaver out of the way, here are some photos from Jonathan's little birthday dinner. He's a fussy eater who, when prompted, asked for pizza and chocolate chip cookies for his celebration.

While waiting for the pizza to arrive, he opened his card, puzzles, and yoyo in that order.

The yoyo is different than any that he has had before and different than those that I used to play with about 60 years ago. But I had tried to get a little used to it before his birthday, so I did my best to give him a few pointers. In this photo I am rolling the string back up; this in itself is quite a unique procedure compared to the yoyos that both JJ and I are familiar with.

The pizza arrived: one for the kids, one for the adults. You may notice that the on kids' pizza (right), the two halves have different ingredients to suit their respective tastes. Sheesh!

Then came the procession of the cake. You can see the requested cookies on the edge of the plate, but we had nowhere to stick the candles, so we also also bought a small cake at the last minute.

Jonathan claps his hands with glee before summoning a mighty blow.

Then he got really silly by attempting to eat his cookies with a spoon.

And that, dear friends, is how Jonathan celebrated his 11th birthday with us and us with him.

A Puzzlement

Do I look puzzled in this picture?

If so, it was probably because Danica had grabbed my camera at Jonathan's birthday dinner and I was wondering when she was going to snap the shutter.

But these days, life is puzzling me in general. Maybe it always has puzzled me and I have always been just trying to cipher out what the heck it is all about.

On the previous night, I had been awakened three times with rather vicious abdominal cramps.

This was after trying very hard to follow a bland, BRAT sort of diet for about a week.

I have never been able to pinpoint whether there is much of a relationship between my diet and my symptoms. Sometimes, it just seems that my symptoms will go off when they jolly well decide to and nothing else matters. So, I took the chance and ate [moderately] some of JJ's birthday pizza and cake. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead, and all that.

Come 11pm, I decided to sleep in my recliner for the first part of the night. It is sometimes more comfortable for my aches and pains than the horizontal bed. I was planning on starting there and moving to the bed later.

What happened was that I had the best sleep in months, so much so that I was still groggy when I awoke 8 hours later.

Eight Hours! Eight whole hours! I normally consider 5 hours acceptable, 6 hours good, and 7 hours a gift from the gods. Eight hours might actually be enough for me to renew my faith in Odin. lol

The other lagniappe was that I only had to get up once for my usual nocturnal expulsion of fluids. Normally, I get up at least twice — in a shorter night to boot.

Despite relapsing in my diet, my system was very much better than in the previous night,

I can't figure life out. Can you?

Warriors on Ice

I watched a hockey game last night: my team, the Montreal Canadiens vs. the New Jersey Devils. There is nothing remarkable about that; it is something that I do frequently. It's the Canadiens that I follow and have done for most of my sentient life.

The first game I remember watching was in our landlady's apartment, downstairs in our duplex. It was 1955, and I was 7. Although I had to look it up to confirm the year, I could pinpoint it  because Les Boys (sometimes called that in French but with a mixture of English) lost to the Detroit Red Wings. I was able to do this with such assurance because the next year they went on to win 5 Stanley Cups (championships) in a row.

Hockey players are special breed: true warriors, playing through all sorts of cuts, bruises and injuries. They would be ashamed to fake an injury which is a common practice in soccer. They will take a stick to the face, be bleeding or even picking up their teeth off the ice, yet not miss a single shift. They carry on when players in almost every other sport would tap out. It is just hockey culture.

Last night the team was struck with the flu, a few so badly that they were forced to miss the game. The others soldiered on although they did not have their usual jump.

Finally, they got going and erased a 2-0 deficit to take the lead.

This player got an assist on the third goal.

MartinChevalier/JdeM via TVA Sports

His name is Ryan Poehling; he is a first year rookie from St Cloud University. I am featuring him because it is reported that he was forced to leave the bench several times to vomit. Yet he returned and played on with great heart.

They are a special breed, these hockey players. Warriors on Ice.

Birthday Boy

My youngest grandchild celebrates his 11th birthday today. Youngest! Eleven!

What I do for most birthdays and even other occasions is make cards. Always using photoshop, of course.

Front (and back for that matter)

Inside

I also began to composite a collage for the kids' birthdays when Jonathan was four and Danica was six.Each years collage features photos from the children's past 12 months. These were all taken during this, his 11th, year.

We can't return we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game.

https://youtu.be/V9VoLCO-d6U

The Magnifying Glass

Recently, I read a post in which a magnifying glass was mentioned. At present, I have no idea who wrote it. Sorry about that, but I am septuagenarian, so please just give me credit for gathering my diminishing mental resources to remember anything: anything at all. And then to actually write about it. What a clever septuawhatchamacallit am I.

But of course, that post made me think of my magnifying glass: the one that I wrote about ten years ago. Is it really ten years already? Ten?

Here's the short history. As far as I understand, it was first used by my maternal grandmother after she suffered vision problems following a bad fall. I am pretty sure that this would have been sometime in the 1940s as she died in 1949, two years after I cried my way into the world. (Apparently, she was unable to see me, her only grandson, or at least not very well.)

The Glass (as it was called) eventually made its way into my parents possession, and they used it as needed in their senior years. I remember them, particularly my dad, using it. There he is with it over there. → (The glass is to the bottom left of the frame, by the newspaper.)

I wrote about it in Through The Glass Dimly those ten years ago and again six years ago when Danica used it to probe Buppa's Big Bald Head.

Even as a septuagenarian I have reasonably good close-up vision, so I don't need to use the glass, except occasionally for the teeny tiny fine print found on certain containers. (You know the ones.) But that means I do use it somewhat, and isn't it at least a little remarkable for a magnifying glass to have such a pedigree? I mean, three generations already!. And in Buppa's Big Bald Head, Danica used it, and she is fifth generation. Crazy, eh?

It's silly, I know, but I hope The Glass makes it into Shauna's care someday and then, maybe, to Danica's household. Unless it originally came from elsewhere before grandmother used it, which would make it even older, it is approximately 80 years old now, and if Danica were to have it when she's 80, the glass would then be a century and a half old.

Here I insert the notion that my mother, as her cataracts were developing, had in her 80s — that the glass was wearing out and losing its potency. This amuses me whenever I think about it.

All of that is the background to introduce the two photos that are coming up because I think the context is rather important in this case.

You see, I thought that I should photograph myself with the glass. Sue was out when I finally got around to it, so I set the camera up on my tripod and fired it remotely using my phone while I sat at the table pretending to read something or other (the yellow pages directory) while peering through the glass.

Furthermore, I decided to don my hat, one that let me emulate Sherlock Holmes as best as I could. I think that we all picture Holmes peering intently through his magnifying glass while wearing that wonderful deerstalker hat, but my fedora would have to suffice.

I had a vision of sorts for what I wanted, which is highly unusual for me. I conceived the photos to be monochromatic, and I wanted them to be low key (dark), and a little on the gritty side.

And so, without further ado . . . Ta Da!

These are reasonably close to what I had in mind. I might tinker with them a bit still since the directory that I am reading is dark in the first photo and should be at least faintly visible, as it is in the second photo. However, I like the fact that I was more or less able to accomplish what I set out to do. (I have now done further editing but will leave these images as they were when I readied this post.)

Not bad for a septuawhatchamacallit. Eh what?

Soup to Fight the GIs

I have been dealing with GI issues for some time now, which have nothing to do with the army, I'll have you know. Although I sometimes feel as though a troop of GIs were marching through my abdomen. (Not to worry, the medical establishment has been alerted.)

The symptoms flare up from time to time and simmer on the backburner at other times. Recently, the GI troop has been stomping around with great gusto.

And so, I have been trying to keep my diet under control by eschewing those goodies that are baddies for my system. Nix to the chocolate, soft drinks, chips and the like in this little battle that I wage against the forces of indigestion ... and more.

It dawned on this pathetic, beaten-down warrior, that soup might be easy to digest, and I thought of a recipe that I/we hadn't made for quite some time: potato leek soup.

Of course, I am about to post the de rigueur photos. These are just snap shots as food photography doesn't really interest me a whole lot. Yet, I have met some photographers, or at least one, for whom food photography is a great interest. À chacun son goût.

Chopping the leeks

Simmering the leeks and onions

Potatoes and milk have been added, brought to a boil, and are simmering for 20 minutes

Use a mixer to turn the mixture into soup

Ladling

Salt, pepper and cheese added to the dish

After mixing in the cheese, I added croutons

I know that no one cares, but it's a post, although with the GI theme, I sometimes feel like the bugler is warming up to play the last post (not really — just trying to return to the metaphor).

Caturday 16

On this Caturday, I bring you a 36 second video of Lacey getting petted by Sue. See how Lacey  raises her head to correct the situation whenever Sue has the audacity to stop petting.