Snow White and Mountains Black

Yes, it's Round Robin time again! Marie, author of the photoblog, "Photographs and Memories Too" submitted this latest challenge topic, "Black and White Landscape." I'm no Ansel Adams, but it's always interesting when we get a topic that stretches us beyond our usual photographic habits.

Tuffy and my car frame this view of the Catalinas

Since Tuesday, therefore, I've been switching my camera over to black and white any time a landscape looked like it might work in that mode. I haven't had time to venture far from my usual routes, to work and back and over to the vet's office with Tuffy; so the photographic subjects here are familiar, at least for me. Fortunately, however, the weather in Tucson this week has been surprisingly wintry. There has been snow on the Santa Catalinas, and fog in the air, and frost on the windshield. The fog didn't photograph well in black and white, but the snow did.

A line of cars crosses desert scrub on Alvernon near Irvington

A rocky meridian separates eastbound from westbound Golf Links Road

Driving toward the snowy Catalinas

This shot of trees on Golf Links is blurred and distorted
by fog(?) and by movement...

...so I made it even more abstract with a pastel effect.

A neighbor's Christmas lights are still pretty in monochrome

Suddenly I live in Denver - except for the palm trees!

The Border Patrol station at Swan Road.

I should have written down for you which shots are completely untouched except for resize or sharpen, which ones were rotated or autoenhanced or both, and which ones I fudged with clone and/or paintbucket. But it's late, and I didn't, and anyway, I think I cropped out that part of the Christmas one. Ha!

Thanks for the great topic, Marie!

Now go see what the rest of the Robins are up to. And be sure to welcome out three new Robins this week!

Karen

Linking List

Marie - Posted!
Photographs & Memories
http://photographsmemoriestoo.blogspot.com/
http://journals.aol.com/mariebm56/PhotographsAndMemories/ (different!)

Carly - Posted!
Ellipsis
http://ellipsissuddenlycarly.blogspot.com

Steven - Posted!
(sometimes)photoblog
http://sepintx.blogspot.com/

Sandra *** Welcome New Member*** - Posted!
Strong Chemistry
http://strongchemistry.blogspot.com

Vicki - Posted!
Maraca
http://mymaracas.blogspot.com/

Tammie Jean - Posted!
Long Drives to Nowhere
http://tammiejean.blogspot.com

Karen - Posted!
Outpost Mâvarin
http://outmavarin.blogspot.com

Celeste - Posted!
C's Life
http://celeste-cslife.blogspot.com

Lisa *** Welcome New Member*** - Posted!
lisa's chaos
http://lisaschaos.blog-city.com

Chrissie *** Welcome New Member*** - Posted!
Chris-seas Corner
http://Chrisseas-corner.tripod.com

Nancy - Posted :-)
Nancyluvspix
http://journals.aol.com/nhd106/Nancyluvspix/

Nekked Lizards *** Welcome New Member*** -Posted!
Nekked Lizard Adventures
http://nekkedlizardadventures.typepad.com/

Gattina - Posted!
Keyhole Pictures
http://gattina-keyholepictures.blogspot.com

Too Little, Too Soon

Weekend Assignment #195: Do something extra nice for someone you know. Which is to say, something above and beyond your general level of niceness. Could be for a spouse, or a friend, or a co-worker, or a child, or someone you've met randomly as you're walking around the mall.

Considering that we only have a few of these things to go, I'd like to stick with my usual pattern while I can, and post my Weekend Assignment entry on Thursday night. However, I haven't really done anything more than ordinarily nice today. I mean yeah, I bought John his favorite salad an hour ago at Safeway, because our conversation at dinner led me to think it might be more helpful to him than one might expect of a mere salad. But that's still pretty darn ordinary, isn't it?

A foggy morning in Tucson: Wednesday, around 7:45 AM

And a couple of days ago, the day of the fog, I think, I saw a homeless man, one of the regulars, on this stretch of meridian at Irvington and Alvernon. They tend to congregate at intersections outside the city line, because they were banned from doing so inside the City of Tucson some years ago. Sometimes they sell newspapers, but this guy had no newspapers at that particular moment. I reached into my wallet, and pulled out a five, because it was the smallest bill I had. "Go get something warm," I said.

See? Ordinary. And it wouldn't count anyway, because it happened before the assignment. I haven't done anything nice yet in response to the assignment itself.

But I'll see what I can come up with over the weekend.

Oh, and by the way. Look what we had this morning!

Frost! Real frost on the back of my car!

Karen

Celebrate Him Home

As we know, AOL will soon be parting company with John Scalzi, creator of the AOL Journal By the Way, the Weekend Assignments, Monday Photo Shoots, and a handful of nifty Ficlets. This is one of those "by mutual agreement" situations; AOL is contemplating a change in direction, and Scalzi is contemplating how much easier it will be to meet his deadlines for writing books if he's not busy amusing us with news of phosphorescent cats and fun games and pictures out hotel windows.

I already did my main Scalzi tribute entry, so I'm not going to go on and on about him tonight.

That's where you come in.

Are you one of John Scalzi's many fans? Was it because of him that you first learned how to upload a photo or a video, or had at least one thing to write about each weekend? Has By the Way or the Ficlets blog always been a "must read" for you? As time ticks away to the end of the year, when Scalzi's AOL contract runs out, would you like to show your appreciation for his four years of fun and inspiration and community building, and share your favorite Scalzi memes or moments with other readers?

If so, we've got just the journal for you!

It's called

ScalziCelebration

and it just went live tonight. Carly (whose idea this was), Steven and I have put it together on AOL as a centralized place in which we can all thank John Scalzi for all his good work, and leave links to our own tributes, favorite Monday Photo Shoots, Weekend Assignments, Ficlets or other Scalzi-related fun. We've got three entries to get things started, and we'll be adding more over the next three weeks, featuring YOUR links and tributes, plus several surprises. So click on over and see what you think. Let's gather our scattered journaling community one more time, and give our Blogfather a big send-off!

Karen

Distant Snow and Disastrous Shoes

I would have started on this entry earlier had I remembered that I took over 30 pictures while I was out taking Tuffy to the vet. There was snow on the mountains, and I was trying to get a decent shot of that. I never quite managed it, but I'm posting two of the better attempts anyway.

Tuffy still has an infected and inflamed tongue. This accounts for her stinky breath, a symptom I don't think I've mentioned here until now. The vet gave her more prednisone at a lower dose, plus a sort of doggy mouthwash we're supposed to squirt into her mouth with a syringe. There were supposed to be antibiotics too, but they weren't in the bag. John will have to pick those up on his way home from work.


At the office this morning I noticed that my right shoe felt a little odd on my foot, and was sticking to the floor a bit. When I looked at the sole, I saw a huge split in the plastic, exposing a piece of metal and shredding the heel. Later in the day I noticed the same thing on the other shoe, although not as severe. These were $40 or $50 shoes from Payless, about three months old. I paid more than usual, and got inferior shoes, clearly! That's certainly the most sudden and extreme Gratuitous Shoe Failure (GSF) I've ever experienced. Well, okay, they were worn down, but I've never seen another pair of shoes split down the middle like that.


Tonight I therefore went to Wal-Mart, where I usually buy shows if they're not out of everything decent in my size. As you can see, my size is currently Men's 10 1/2 Wide. It's a little tricky getting a men's show that looks acceptable on a woman in an office setting, but that's what I have to do.

No big thematic wrap up tonight, or even a decent rant. Sorry. Good night!

As Cold as a December Night in Tucson

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Show something frosty. A frosted window pane, a frosty mug of beer, a pet coming in from the cold -- if it's frosted, it's in. If it's not particularly frosty where you are, or you don't have any frost laden pictures in your archives: Fake being cold. Because that would be funny.

My first reaction to this one was come on, Scalzi! Frost? In Tucson? It's not that it doesn't happen, but it's certainly not a common occurrence, or likely to happen on the average Monday night in December. Fake being cold? Fake, how? Pretend to shiver, as I did one day in elementary school when a substitute teacher proposed to give the job of retrieving the book cart to whoever looked the coolest?

But then I went outside, into this:

A cold and cloudy dusk - but no frost

And yeah, it was cold. I thought, well, maybe frost on a December night in Tucson isn't so farfetched after all!

So I went outside with my camera shortly before midnight. No frost, but there's certainly lots of condensation on the car windows. Does that count?

I swear the car was clean this morning!

Overnight: Showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 43. South southeast wind around 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. - NWS/NOAA

Okay, so no frost per se, because it won't be a hard freeze. I guess the provision about faking it comes into play at this point. I can use the moonlight filter in PhotoStudio to emphasize the condensation a bit:

Fake moonlight on the Eagle's back window

And heck, there's a "frost" effect in the program as well. Let's have some fun with that:

Fake frost on the Eagle

Ridiculous fake frost on the old New Yorker

Really, though, I'm not dying for colder weather here. My office at work has no heat. The larger room does, but it doesn't reach my office, which is against a concrete outer wall. I purchased a space heater and brought it to work, but it almost immediately trips a circuit breaker when I plug it in. I'll be taking it home tomorrow.

Two cold-weather purchases from today, plus John's blanket

I was especially cold today, even with long sleeves under my interview jacket - not that I'm interviewing, but I thought it would be a good thing to wear on a cold day. The shirt was inadequate and the jacket doesn't close. So I ventured out to a nearby outlet mall and bought a long-sleeved black shirt with a gold modern Christmas tree design, which looks really sharp under the black jacket; plus this layered top and this blue zip-up sweater. That other other thing in the picture is the blanket John huddled under tonight while watching Star Trek ("The Menagerie"). It may not be frosty here in Tucson tonight, but for two people who have lived in Tucson for 21 years, it's plenty chilly enough!

Karen

Why Goodbye?

My friend is disappearing, and the situation is cloudy.

No, I'm not talking about Scalzi this time, although his recent announcement does exacerbate my angst over what happened today. An offline friend dumped me, in a one-paragraph, handwritten letter.

I'm not going to tell you who this is or the exact circumstances. You don't know this person, and my friend is extremely unlikely to ever see this blog entry. But that's not the point. My sort-of-ex-friend deserves privacy. Still, this situation has thrown me, so I'm going to ramble on in generalities for a bit.

See, even though the letter ends with "Goodbye, Karen," I have reason to believe that for once this isn't about me, or something I've done or left undone. I was given a heads-up weeks ago by a third party that my friend has been systematically severing ties with other people. Nevertheless, I saw no evidence of this until this morning, when I read the letter that John had retrieved from the mail and put in my purse. In it, my friend indicated dropping out of an activity and social group we've attended together for years and years, and going on to do something similar elsewhere. To the extent that the letter indicated a reason at all, it was about being drawn to this change of venue, not some acknowledged fault in the old arrangement. But I was not invited to the new place. Instead, I was essentially blessed and sent packing.

Naturally I've spent hours today considering what, if anything, I should do. My first inclination was to go pound on my friend's door, and demand a full and honest explanation. I didn't do that, of course. It's far too confrontational, and would undoubtedly upset both of us. A phone call would not be an improvement, and I'm not sure the situation calls for an intervention. My current plan is to write an honest, loving letter, expressing my surprise and concern, supporting my friend's right to explore new avenues, and leaving my door open for future contact. But this isn't a letter I'll be sending tomorrow. As another friend pointed out, there's a possibility that this will blow over, and things will be more comfortable for my friend if I don't force the issue now. Unless I'm supposed to force the issue, just to prove I care!

But really, I can't begin to judge whether this new direction is a healthy one for my friend. If it means withdrawing from the world, or at least personal relationships great and small, and replacing all that with nothing but internal monologue, then it sounds like a very bad idea, a case of agoraphobia or at least depression. If it's part of an attempt at self-reinvention, though, it could be a way to get a fresh start, leaving interpersonal baggage behind while going on to meet new people who won't react based on shared history. Is that what's happening? Would that be a bad thing? How can I tell? And there's the possibility that this dumping of this particular group really is about personal growth someplace else, as the letter sort of indicated.

Can we emerge from the shadows?

My concern here is for my friend, and the fact that I don't honestly know what I can do to help at this point, because I don't know what's going on in my friend's head. Still, I can't help feeling just a smidge sorry for myself as well. If I really thought this was about me, I'd probably be pretty devastated, especially in the wake of other recent events, arguments, failures, setbacks and, you know, day to day life. Other people have had a far tougher time of it than I have, but 2007 hasn't exactly been my year. There's nothing I could have done to save First Magnus, probably nothing to get that one job I was up for, and definitely nothing to prevent Tuffy's cancer or Scalzi's departure from AOL as an independent contractor. We've done what we can for Tuffy (and she's doing pretty well right now, I'm happy to say), but we can't actually cure her. Is there something I can do for my friend? Is there something I should do? Or is it just another situation over which I have little or no influence, except to make things worse?

Karen

Random Remarks

"Just sits there, making random remarks."
- Lawrence Nightingale, "Blink" (Doctor Who)

Okay, this is the part where I'm supposed to stop reading (and posting on, a little) www.doctorwhoforum.com, stop watching the Fifth Doctor story Terminus, write this entry, post to the church blog, work on Chapter One of Heirs, read Sara's chapter, listen to the messages on the house phone (if any), do the dishes, and go to bed, preferably in the next fifteen minutes.

Yeah. Like that's going to happen. I have a vision of Lucy Van Pelt, filling a four inch panel with the words,

HA HA HA HA HA!

See, I've been indulging in, well, I believe it's called squee. Certainly squee is involved. Last night I was up all night (as you can tell from the timecoding of my Scalzi tribute, if it's accurate, which it often isn't) reading a series of reports from fans in Cardiff, Wales, who successfully shouted out a number of Doctor Who shooting locations, broke the news about a major cast member's return to the show (which the BBC then had to confirm), and posted enough info about the scenes they saw to fuel a fairly coherent theory about what happens in episode 11 next year. It was fascinating, reading through a series of posts made over the course of about two weeks, during which major revelations were uncovered. I'm not sure I'd want to know this much (assuming I really know anything beyond two pieces of casting) about the upcoming episodes generally, but I'm all excited about this one, and have been busily working out in my mind what it will be and What It All Means.

Then someone pointed out that a character from the spinoff show The Sarah Jane Adventures was a likely culprit to have caused the whole episode 11 situation, and that moreover, he shared certain abilities, limitations, and even paraphrased dialogue with a major baddie from the old series. So naturally I had to rewatch the Sarah Jane story, and then the 1980s story with the original dialogue, and then the serial after that in case he said it again!

Someone else's screen capture.

Meanwhile today, for certain values of today that involve my insistence on calling Sunday morning 3 AM part of Saturday night, the BBC posted a ten second trailer for the Doctor Who Christmas special for 2007, "Voyage of the Damned." It consisted of three images: David Tennant as the Doctor, looking worried; Kiley Minogue as Astrid, looking perplexed, and the Titanic, looking like a space ship because somehow it is one. I think it's meant to be the original steamship, rebuilt and made spaceworthy as a luxury liner for wealthy space travelers; but I don't actually know that. But either way, it's really interesting!

What else have I to report? Forthwith some random remarks:

I gave blood today. The process slowed down in the middle of my filling the bag, and a Red Cross nurse had to actually hold the needle in place for a while. But it worked.

A steak and ribs combo doesn't seem quite as outrageously expensive if I stretch it out over two meals (i.e. take a box of leftovers home) and give the rib bones to the dog.

Having the wait staff of a restaurant dance and clap and shout "yee-haw" should never take precedence over clearing plates and refilling ice tea. In fact, I'd rather they skipped the choreography and shouting entirely.

My computer has been a little better today, but I've still had to reboot about three times. I turned off the screensaver, the running of which seems to set off problems.

Tuffy is out of prednisone. Too soon to tell whether her tongue is bothering her more or her appetite is dwindling. Bottle has a refill, but where do I fill a doggie prescription? Got to take her in for a follow-up this week anyway, so it may not matter.

John found someone's 1956 home movies with 1995 narration, all about winning a trip to Disneyland. It was a neat thing.

By dawdling tonight I've managed to postpone bed until the BBC put up the next fun thing on its online DVD calendar, a jigsaw puzzle. Just doing it now. Done! Finishing it revealed about half a page of script from the special, the contents of which provided no enlightenment whatsoever. Squee!

Karen