Up a Tree

I was going to do the second half of my rant about The Best of Times, but I think I'll leave it until after I get my weekly dose of adequate sleep. Tonight (okay, early this morning, or something - hey, it's still dark outside here) I'm going to show you a few pictures I took today, with explanations and a few random connections.


This was the sight that awaited me when I came home for lunch today: a guy in the big pine tree next door, messing around with a chainsaw on a rope. I called up a greeting to the tree surgeon guy.

"I've never seen a chainsaw on a rope before," I said.

"I wish I'd never seen one," said the guy in the tree.

The tired brain fires up some synapses, and comes up with this:

Teresa used to repair McCulloch chainsaws for a living.

Should I mention this?

No.

I asked permission to take some photos.

"Sure!" the guy said.

I pulled out my camera (no, I haven't sent it off yet, but I will, I promise) and pointed it at the guy in the tree. At first I couldn't see much of anything. The lens iris had not opened. I opened it manually, with my fingers. Even then, because of backlighting and glare, I could not see him in the viewfinder at all, so I just lined it up as best I could from the vague shape of the tree.

"Cheese!"the guy said.

The tired brain fires up some synapses, and comes up with this:

I misspelled the word "cheese" in a story I wrote for Miss Nevin in second grade. I put a z in it. The word appeared over and over in the story, and I misspelled it every time.


I tried to get a picture from a different angle, but I still could not see what I was doing. I would just have to trust that at least a few of these shots would come out okay anyhow. And they did! The chainsaw is a bit hard to see, but it's that thing that looks like a stick and a gym bag on the lower right.

The tired brain fires up some synapses, and comes up with this:

The guy kind of looks like Steve Irwin up there, all adventurous and maybe a little crazy.


Third attempt. I'm not sure why the right half of the shot is blurry, unless I smeared the lens while opening it. It could be a function of the midday glare.

The tired brain fires up some synapses, and comes up with this:

A quick guide to plotting a story, according to Algis J. Budrys: get your protagonist up a tree, throw rocks at him, get him out of the tree.



Here's the tree as seen from under the overhang by my front door. John and I are hoping this tree-trimming (not the Christmas kind!) will result in less pine needle and pine cone debris, and maybe even fewer bird droppings on John's car.

The tired brain fires up some synapses, and comes up with this:

Heirs of Mâvarin starts with Rani in a tree. Is this guy higher up than Rani was? Probably.


Sorry, but that's about as profound as I can manage at 4:35 AM on this particular June morning. I'm going to bed now. I may be asleep for some time.

Karen

Technorati Tags: Photos, Writing, Trees
Personal