A Tiny Mosquito

The scare over the West Nile virus is on everyone's mind here in Texas.  Well, I too am a bit nervous about it since I am outside walking Zoey every single day, multiple times a day!  So far I haven't seen one mosquito in our neighborhood.  But that isn't true for INSIDE my own home.  Yep, tonight I got bit while sitting in my Lazyboy chair watching TV.  How crazy is that?

The Sugarland Skeeters

How much fun is it that my son is the play by play broadcaster for the Sugarland Skeeters for their inaugural season of 2012!  We catch almost every game we can to listen to him.  But when Roger Clemens announced to the world that he was going to join them and pitch last Saturday night, the press went wild!  Articles appeared in every paper, on every sport’s newscast, and on the internet.  Lane was mentioned in a few of them and even interviewed around the country, but all the attention was on Roger.  We were at the game and of course I took my camera and snapped off a few hundred pictures to remember the evening.

Lane had Art Howe, the former Major League Baseball infielder, coach, scout and manager join him in the broadcast booth. He managed the Houston Astros, Oakland Athletics, and New York Mets.

Click on the link to listen to Lane call a game almost every night.

http://www.houstonseagle.com/s/skeeterslive/

Pool fun

My great niece Mia spent the afternoon with us.  Avery took her to the pool to have some fun with her underwater camera.  She also took her surfboard and taught her to paddle and stand up on it!  They had a great time!

Welcome Ryder

Yesterday I got to meet Ryder, the most gorgeous male fawn doberman. He is 8 months old but acts like a goofy wild teenager!  Ryder was running back and forth, here and there, enjoying all the attention we were giving him.  He belongs to my friend Debby and her husband Jim.  When I asked her how he got his name she told me that when they picked him up from the breeder he immediately took to the back of their truck and went to sleep.  He was such a good "rider" that she chose that name.

This old man...

Driving around Houston I see some really strange people in cars next to me.  You could probably say that about most cities.  I always have a camera with me whether it is my iPhone or Canon 50D.  This was an old man that pulled up to the red traffic light.  I had enough time to snap a few shots off before he looked my way.

Looking back at some drawings I had made in my art journals, I found this picture that I made last year.  They look similar!

Everything but the kitchen sink...

An idiom is a figure of speech that does not have the obvious presented meaning.  This is “everything but the kitchen sink”…

Trees

TREES

by: Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

 THINK that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

 

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

 

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

 

A tree that may in Summer wear

A nest of robins in her hair;

 

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;

Who intimately lives with rain.

 

Poems are made by fools like me,

But only God can make a tree.

Visual thinking...

Photography is a passion of mine.  I believe it is because I am a visual learner.  I take a mental snapshot of everything that I see even if I do not have my camera with me.  It is like blinking your eyes to embed an image in your mind.
I remember my trip to Israel back in 1987.  The minute I stepped off the plane my camera broke.   I couldn't even purchase a disposable back then to replace it.  I was stuck.  That is when I tried really hard to remember everything I saw.

Currently I am shooting with an iphone and a Canon 50D.  I would love to upgrade to a full frame camera. 

X is for xenophobia

Xenophobia is a fear of strangers or of persons different from oneself.  If you are a street photographer you can’t have this fear!  Taking a photo of a stranger and walking away can be a very scary endeavor, especially when you are looking for that one special shot!  Sometimes you are trying to capture a feeling or look on a stranger’s face.  I love this genre of photography the most!

The letter “Z” is for zaftig.

Yiddish is a combination of the local languages of Germany, Poland, Russia, and other Eastern European nations where Jews settled from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. These words and expressions are still uttered daily by my parents, friends, and by me. You’ll find that many of these words are very fun to say!

Some of my favorite words are, tchotchke, bubelah, mitzvah, shmuck, macher, meshuggeneh, chutzpa, and the ever popular mensch.

The most common phrase has to be “Oy vey!” But the one that I love is “zaftig”.  Can you guess the meaning?

Self Portrait

Most photographers don’t enjoy having their pictures taken.  I am no exception!  Once I got behind the lens I never wanted to go back to being on the other side.  This photo was snapped while on a cruise.  Wish I could escape back to that balcony right now and enjoy that cup of coffee again!

The weather here in Houston has been so hot and humid.  I can't wait another six weeks for a break.  I normally don't wish for time to fly but PLEASE hurry up!  I am so tired of sweating all of the time!

Someone that inspires me...

Someone that inspires me is a woman named Vivian Maier.  Maier’s recent, sudden ascent from reclusive eccentric to esteemed photographer is one of the more remarkable stories in American photography.  Maier had been born in New York City in 1926, to a French mother and Austrian father; she had spent part of her youth in France, but she worked as a nanny in the United States for half a century, winding down her career in the 1990s.   Though some of the children she helped raise supported Maier after they came of age, she couldn’t make the payments on a storage locker she rented.

In 2007, the locker’s contents ended up at a Chicago auction house, where a young real estate agent named John Maloof came upon her negatives. Maloof, an amateur historian, spotted a few shots of Chicago he liked. He bought a box of 30,000 negatives for $400.  Maloof soon realized what he had discovered and started a blog about her photographs.

What inspires me most is the idea of a woman who as a street photographer was completely in self-imposed exile from the photography world.  Yet she made thousands and thousands of photographs obsessively, and created a very interesting body of work.”

In late 2008, she slipped on a patch of ice, sustaining a head injury that spiraled into other health problems. She died April 20, 2009, age 83.  You can read more about her by clicking the link below.

http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com/

When is "OLD" old?

Our cat Caesar is almost 20 years old.  Has he slowed down?  …YES…  Does he act like he is 20?  …NO…  How do you figure out cat years to human years?  I know dogs are seven to our one.    But actually he is 97 years old!!!  Wow…

If you have a cat you can calculate their age here:

http://www.calculatorcat.com/cats/cat-years.phtml

Caesar sleeps most of the time and loves to eat and drink water.  But his coat is still healthy and his bones aren’t sticking out too much.  He gets around quite well.  Here is a photo of him in my art studio.  He is sitting on a pile of clothing donations.

But he does still have a loud meow!  He can’t hear anymore so he doesn’t realize that he is actually VERY, VERY loud especially when he is hungry.  Caesar knows when we are eating dinner and will sit in a chair and stare at me waiting for a morsel.

Caesar is a great cat!

Something I do everyday

Something I try to do everyday is take photographs.  I love taking pictures with my cameras.  I have two of them, really three if you count my iPhone!  I predominantly shoot with a Canon 50D.  My favorite genre is street photography.

What we have...

Sadly, we are influenced by a society that eats not when it’s hungry, but when it’s bored.  We are distracted by access, and it’s disheartening, because we are so much more than that.  We drink, we smoke, we eat sweets and super size our meals!  Just look around at all the overweight people!

The other day I passed a store where shoes were offered at a ridiculous price.  I had to go in and shop!  But I see this all the time.  You open up your closet and you have clothes that you either forgot about or that you have never even worn! People go into debt by buying bargains. For what?  If anything it leaves you feeling empty and craving more after you bring them home.

What about that new TV show called HOARDERS?  Have you seen it?  They show you the clutter and mess that someone is living with and then by the end of the show they try and clean it all up.  They are able to get to the root of the real problem and help those lost souls clean out their minds.  Usually it is an emotional issue that results from learning how to cope with something when we feel all alone.

My suggestion is to clean out your closet TODAY and donate or consign your excess.  There are so many people out there who need the basic necessities.  

BUT REMEMBER that it is sometimes absolutely necessary to enjoy the occasional gelato from time to time!!