Tuffy: 1, Br'er Rabbit: 0

Your Monday Photo Shoot: Oh no! You and/or someone you love is being attacked by a stuffed animal! Document the moment of terror!

This should be easy. I'll use Tuffy as the loved one/victim. After all, she's afraid of almost everything!


Turns out the operative word in that sentence is "almost." Tuffy is not afraid of Br'er Rabbit, it turns out. When he attacked, she thought she was getting a rabbity hug.


Even when he poked her in the eye, she didn't retaliate.



"Hey, Sistah Tuffy! Whar did you get them spooky eyes of yours? Hey! I's talkin' to you!"


Totally unconcerned, Tuffy ignores her would-be attacker.



Br'er Rabbit tries once more,but it all goes horribly wrong. Tuffy checks to make sure he's okay. I'd advise Br'er Rabbit to quit tangling with my dog and go pester Br'er Bear.

Karen


Technorati Tags: Monday Photo Shoot, Scalzi, Toys, Br'er Rabbit, Tuffy, Disney

Unprocessed Experience

Okay, so I was wrong about whether I'd be us for writing a full entry tonight. It's the end of another incredibly long day, I never made it to the office, and I just haven't processed this morning's events yet, either intellectually or emotionally. So we'll just have to make do for now with four annotated photos.




Here is Bishop Smith, standing right next to me as he gave his sermon this morning on security and preparedness and not being afraid. I'm not going to try to explain the sermon now, but I want you to see that the man moved around far too much for me to get a decent shot at that range without flash - and I was certainly not going to shine a light in his eyes from three feet away. Kind of looks like a special effects shot of Homer Simpson or John Scalzi, doesn't he?


Here is the better of the two shots another confirmation/reception candidate managed to take of me at The Big Moment. The battery on the camera was running low by then, so I had the flash turned off, and besides that there just wasn't room to see what was going on very well, especially with some of the people I photographed. People were invited to come up and place their hand on the candidate's shoulder in a gesture of support. My friends Kevin, Jan, and Eva all stayed in their seats, and of course John wasn't even there. But Father Smith and Rev. Angela put their hands on me, and that was enough. At my feet are my church bulletin and my Book of Common Prayer, which I dropped so the bishop could take me by both hands and officially receive me into the Episcopal communion. I think I was grinning, but you can't see it here.


This is Toni Sue, our Verger. She was baptized a year and a half ago, and will probably go on to be a deacon at least. Toni Sue is very kind and outgoing, and the spiritual home she has found at St. Michael's is very important to her. Everyone in the parish has really come to love her. Knowing how important confirmation is to Toni Sue, a lot of parishioners wanted to be in on it, more than could physically get close enough to touch her. So Father Smith told the people in back to put a hand on the person in front of them. This outpouring of love made me cry.


And here is Bishop Smith again, with his dummy Dexter. He's no ventriloquist, but the kids do like it when Dexter and the bishop talk about God in between jokes.

Karen


Technorati Tags: Priorities, Episcopal, Personal

Many a Slap 'Twixt the Cup and the Lap

This should be the last of my series of "I'll try to do better tomorrow" entries, for a few days at least. Today has been so long for me that it's hard to comprehend that it's been less than 18 hours since I picked up Toni Sue for Morning Prayer, Low Mass, and confirmation class. On the other had, 18 hours does sound like a long time for one day, even broken up with a two-hour-plus nap early this evening. Since getting home this afternoon I've mostly read and commented on some Round Robin entries, caught up on Julie's blog, read all about a scam association of scam literary agents, read a little L'Engle, and *gasp* done some dishes.

Now I need to get done at least a little bit of what I promised myself (and, privately, God) that I'd do today. On one of the other tabs in Firefox, I'm currently uploading a Windows Media file of Father Douglas's sermon from 11/12. (Yes, I know I should convert it to mp3, but I haven't succeeded in doing so.) If it works, I'll upload Father Smith's sermon from the week before. I also hope to get at least the church schedule part of the church schedule page updated. Other than that, I may wash a few more dishes, photograph today's purchases for this blog entry, wash my hair and go to bed.

The reason for this urgency about my church-centric tasks is that I got the date of my "Reception" into the Episcopal Church wrong. It's tomorrow at 10 AM, as Toni Sue puckishly told me over and over today. In the morning, Bishop Smith will shake my hand, and welcome me to the church I've attended for nearly a decade, the church where I carry the cross and read aloud from the Old Testament and take pictures and grab a service bulletin for the purpose, so often neglected, of posting updates to the St. Michael's website and blogs. And it occurs to me that if I'm going to take this seriously, I should do more for God, the church and its people, not less.

Oh, good. The Father Douglas sermon uploaded. I've started a blog entry for the two audio links, and now I'm uploading the Father Smith sermon. I hope. I wonder whether I have any others sitting neglected on my hard drive. Oh. I see I have, but they're older than the ones I know I've posted. Maybe I posted them, but long enough ago that they've dropped off the front page of the SMAA news blog.



I haven't taken any photos since Wednesday night; my camera must be feeling positively neglected. But here is a quick picture taken just now, actually my second try in ten minutes to photograph today's purchases. See, Toni Sue asked me what I would be wearing Sunday morning, and told me of a good deal on skirts. I was already wondering what to wear to the annual office holiday party next month, so after church and class and lunch we went to K-Mart. They didn't have any skirts for me, and the one black dress I tried on was "a world of no," as I told Toni Sue. But I got black cotton pants, nothing fancy, and these two tops, and men's 10 1/2 Thom McCann loafers to replace my perpetually dying $10 sneakers. There should also be a black headband - or maybe it's really really dark green - but it's hiding from me.

The first time I tried to photograph these clothes, there were white spots on the photo, especially the blouse on the right. Dust on the laptop's LCD screen? Nope. Dust on my lens? Yes, that's not all of it. The blouse on the right picked up dust and dog hair within a few minutes of leaving the shopping bag.

Guess I'll wear the other one tomorrow - and hope nobody thinks I'm equating Confirmation with funerals by wearing black.

Karen


Technorati Tags: Photos, Writing, Tucson

My Saturday Morning Appointment

I love photographing St. Michael's, but I end up with a lot of unedited and unposted pictures.

Last weekend, I wrote briefly about Saturday morning at a confirmation class at St. Michael's. I meant to return to the subject in a bit more depth, but I've been busy, obsessive, insomniac and a little bit ill, so I didn't get around to it. I won't do more than scratch the surface of the topic tonight, either.

This took forever to upload because I didn't resize.

It's all part of the same problem, isn't it? This week I didn't get around to writing about why I'm in that class, or posting the baptism photos I took two weeks ago, or reading John 16 and 17, or updating the church web site, or downloading those two sermons on audio. And that's just the religious stuff I didn't get done. There's also the sleep I didn't get, and the dishes I didn't wash (did some of them, though), the laundry I didn't put away, the visits to the gym I didn't make, and the TV Guides I didn't sort through as John asked me to do a month ago. Yes, I'm busy, but mostly I'm busy doing all the wrong things.

At some point I'll be brave enough to write about angels. No, Paul, I won't be making any major claims about them.

But in five and three quarters hours I will pick up Toni Sue at Walgreen's and take her to St. Michael's, where we will sit at Mass together, followed by Confirmation class and lunch. Maybe this weekend I'll be able to stay motivated long enough to get the sermons and the web update done, and post some pictures, and think some more about what it all means to me. You see, I'm not actually getting confirmed next weekend. I went through all that at St. Ann's in Manlius in 1970, when I was 13 years old. But next weekend, at Father Smith's request, I will be "received" into the Episcopal Church, the same denomination for which I've designed web pages and carried a cross and even blogged intermittently for the past several years. Being received is the equivalent of Confirmation for people who were previously confirmed in other denominations.

I won't be joining the clergy anytime soon.

Frankly, I'm hoping to learn more and accomplish more this time around than I did when I was thirteen. My big memory of that is my staring at the buttons on Father Harrison's too-tight cassock as he told us that only Catholics went to heaven. I was shocked that any priest would still believe such a thing, much less try to pass on that outmoded teaching. The instructor of my confirmation class did some quick damage control the moment the pastor walked away.

St. Michael's isn't at all like that, of course. One of the many things I like about it is that people come to it from a variety of religious traditions, and find a spiritual home among people who like and accept each other regardless of background. I really do want to learn more about this church I've adopted, this church that's adopted me.

But lately, as I prepare for a ceremony in which the bishop will lay his hands on me while John sits at home, I find myself distracted and undisciplined, as usual. I'm not prepared at all.

I need to do better.

Guess I'll start by downloading those sermons - and going the heck to bed in the meantime.

Karen

Technorati Tags: Priorities, Episcopal, Personalll,

Definitely Dark

Weekend Assignment #139: It's time for Thanksgiving dinner! Which do you prefer -- white meat, or dark meat? Explain your answer. Because it seems that most people have a preference one way or another, and sometimes they can get testy about it.

For those of you who for some reason disdain the whole turkey scene, answering "neither" is acceptable, but you need to explain why and offer an alternate dish for consumption.

Extra credit: Being Thanksgiving, note one thing you've been thankful for in 2006.

The pictures here are all reruns from a 2004 entry on Musings, "Thanksgiving Before and After." In that entry I gave a fairly detailed account of that Thanksgiving, in which I stuffed the turkey with fresh carrots and celery for a relatively low-carb holiday spread. Under the terms of the Blocher Holiday Compromise, I cook either at Thanksgiving or at Christmas, not both, because John hates the mess involved. Funny thing, though. Because we went to Disneyland for Christmas last year, I haven't cooked a turkey at all since this Thanksgiving one from 2004.

But Scalzi's question is about what kind of turkey I like to eat, not whether we roast turkey at every traditional opportunity. Actually, I'm lucky in this respect. I like dark meat. Always have. John prefers white meat. Since we're the only two people eating the darn thing, that works out fine, except for the fact that it's hard for two people to eat a whole turkey before the remaining leftovers become inedible. More than once I've popped the last of the white meat in the freezer a day or so too late, only to throw it away nine months later.

Why do I prefer dark meat? John Scalzi's own answer to this question pretty much matches mine. Dark meat is almost never dry, and white meat almost always is. Dark meat has more flavor than white meat, and a much better texture. White meat breaks apart into stringy hunks of edible cardboard. Dark meat doesn't. And finally, dark meat comes in handy natural packaging - the thigh and the drumstick. Turkey wings are honorary dark meat.

Extra Credit: I'm thankful that John still puts up with me after all these years. Nearly three decades after we first met, he's still my best friend, my inspiration, my confidante, my travel companion, my main source of intellectual stimulation, my personal humorist, my sounding board, the thorn in my side, my connection for news about Doctor Who and other media, and most of all, the love of my life.

Karen

Technorati Tags: Scalzi, Weekend Assignment, Thanksgiving, Turkey, Thankful, Love

Pumpkin Pancakes and Looney Lamp

I've been distracted all night by TV and Wikipedia, when I should have been commenting on everyone's RR entries. Now it's late, so I'm just going to pop in a couple of photos, explain them, and go to bed.



First of all, congratulations to Barbara for figuring out the pancakes. They were indeed pumpkin pancakes, with cinnamon apple topping. When I saw them on the menu, I could not resist the temptation to resume my quest to try "pumpkin everything." Barbara wins...umm, something!




Second, I thought you might like a closer look at the lamp full of Happy Meal toys. That's Marty McFly on the pink hoverboard in the first shot, and Doc Brown is wearing orange and driving a blue DeLorean in the lower photo. The blue thing with the red and white spiral wheels is Doc Brown's time traveling locomotive. These were all issued in connection with the Back to the Future cartoon series.

Good night!

Technorati Tags: Photos, Pumpkin, Toys

Too-Light Sausage in a Too-Dark Kitchen

Jessica, of the photoblog QuickSilver Dreams, gave us this week's Round Robin Photo Challenge topic, "In the Kitchen!" Now I'm sure that, for a lot of people, the idea conjures up visions of domestic bliss: kids setting the table, something wonderfully aromatic coming fresh from the oven, a cat on the rug and grandmother's old glass gleaming in the sunshine from the kitchen window.

My kitchen is never, ever like that. My motto comes from the 1990 film Sibling Rivalry: "I don't cook. I reheat." Good little movie, that. Anyway, the point is, I hardly ever do any cooking, I have no kids to set the table, no cat to lie on the rug, and the kitchen window is just a pass-through into the den.

But occasionally I have to actually cook something. Tonight it was Italian sausages. I peeled the casings off, put them in water, and added a lid that isn't nearly big enough to cover the entire frying pan. But at least it covers the sausages.

Then I cut up the peppers, one of which had a cameo role in last night's entry as floating food.

I have a bad habit of burning sausage after leaving the room for just a little too long. Hence the water. That cooks the sausage and peppers most of the way. Then when the water runs out, it browns - or burns. But tonight I didn't leave the room. I turned down the heat when the water ran out. The sausage didn't burn. It barely browned before we ran out of patience and ate it anyway. (There was more green pepper than this, by the way. What you see here are the slices that didn't cook as quickly as the rest.)

Recently, as part of the same extravaganza of failing technology that took our old refrigerator and my mouse, we lost the use of an old combination fan and light fixture that we always hated anyway. It's a wiring issue or bad sockets or a short or something. John went to buy something cooler and more modern, but the store didn't have anything good. We'll get it eventually.


A week after that, we lost the use of another old fixture, one that we actually liked and put there. It's not attached at the moment, but this overhead light has a nice white glass cover with a gold wheat pattern. The old cord on this late 1950s or early 1960s lamp has stopped working.


There's a little light over the stove and a small track light over the sink, but they don't do much to light the room. So John brought in this lamp that's been sitting in the bedroom closet for years. The clear base is filled with old Happy Meal toys, circa 1990. There are at least three Back to the Future vehicles in there: a DeLorean, the modified locomotive, and the hoverboard with Marty on it. As you can see, through, the lamp itself doesn't do an adequate job of lighting the room.

That's it for now - probably the least impressive kitchen and kitchen activity on this whole Challenge. Care to top me? Then click this link! And check out everyone else's entries below.

Karen

Linking List

Jessica - Posted!
QuicksilverDreams
http://www.thewatersedge.us/QuickSilver/

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

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

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

Kerrin - Posted!
A New Day A New Photo
http://kerrinsdailyphoto.blogspot.com

Danella - Posted!
Deep Red Style
http://deepredstyle.com

Suzanne R - Posted!
New Suzanne R's Life
http://newsuzannerslife.blogspot.com

Julie - Posted!
Julie's Web Journal
http://www.barrettmanor.com/julie/journal.aspx

Janet - Posted!
Fond Of Photography
http://fondofphotography.blogspot.com

Teena - Posted!
It's all about me!
http://purple4mee.blogspot.com/

Robin - Posted!
R's Musings
http://rs-musings.blogspot.com/

Linda - Posted!
Blah Blah Blog
http://blahblahblog.wordpress.com/

Becky - Posted!
Where Life Takes You
http://ryanagi.blogspot.com

Technorati Tags: Photos, memes, Kitchen, In the Kitchen, Round Robin Photo