A Mississippi River Tree
Because I like to take pictures of trees. With the moon, if you look in the branches. We went to the Memphis Zoo while we there, so I have lots of pictures there too. I highly recommend it if you get the chance. It was amazing and full of good, healthy looking animals. And I so want to keep this up every day! I am going to try to be better, she says, yet again. But I promised four and delivered four. I have that at least. January 3. Still raining. 34 degrees. Thank you for spending some of your day with me.
Winter! Illinois! 2014! When Will It Be Over??
Good for pictures. Bad for driving. Above is a “snow” picture. Below is a “sub-zero” picture. I really wasn’t kidding. The temp was a balmy 23ish yesterday, but it snowed another 2 inches. Today, no snow, but the temp only climbed to about, mmmm, zero. And the thing is, I don’t even care anymore about the negative temps. I’m fine with the cold as long as the roads are clean and dry. If the snowflakes would just fall all over the grass and sidewalks, and avoid the actual driving surfaces, I say bring on 20 more inches. 50. 100! Makes no difference to me. My car can’t even get over medians in the middle of the roads if they have more than 2 inches of snow anyway without getting stuck, so more snow on the “sides” doesn’t bother me at all. I can’t make it into my own driveway when the plows come and push it all in front of where I have to drive across. I’m not kidding. I’ve been stuck 2 times already coming home from work. My son had to give the car a push while I rocked it back and forth to get out of the snow ruts. Once those front tires dig in and spin, I’m done for. Anyway I have to go to bed. I never mean to type so much. But this is meant to be the start of the many many, many, pictures I have taken thus far. We will see just how many actually make it into an already over saturated market of “Winter Snow” pictures. Remember, my pictures always come with at least 300 words of rambling nonsense to lull you into a peaceful slumber on these cold and snowy eve’s. Goodnight fair reader. Sleep sweet and sleep warm and cozy. At the tone, the time and temp will be: 11:58 PM and Negative One degrees Fahrenheit. Beeeeeep.
Everything Is Gonna Be O-Kizz-Ay
It’s February. It’s Super Bowl! (In about 18 hours–Peyton! Go Bronco’s!) I finally, kinda, sorta, feel like I might be back on track to have a job and a life that actually entertains outside interests. Maybe. I am giving it a test-go right here. It’s been snowing every other day with periods of sub-zero temps in between and it feels like I drive to work on the ice roads of Alaska instead of the ice roads of Illinois. Big difference. Except that it’s actually warmer, with less snow, in Alaska right now. Of course. Anyway, first post back and I’m not going to type on and on. This is from the Zoo. Yes. We are crazy in Chicago. We go to the zoo, in the winter time, with the intentional and specific purpose of walking around in the dark and cold and snow to see the lights and take a few pictures. FYI, it was actually like, negative 5 (that’s 5 below zero) with a healthy breeze, this day that I went. Alcohol was my friend. Didn’t feel a thing. In fact, I’m drinking right now, after being in the house all day, while 6 more inches of pure frozen hell fell to the ground and covered the other 6 inches we already had. Here’s to the rest of the year. Looking back and catching up. Thanks for hanging with me as always. I promise to be a better…well…everything. Later.
Benches Before Work
Trying to be quick before work today. I have been off for several days now and I am kind of dreading going back. I like staying home. But I like money too so… This is Little Red Riding Hood. It has a back too. All of the benches have backs obviously, but some of them are decorated with something extra. This is one of them.
This bench has texture and depth and it’s really kind of cool. The next one is kind of plain like the Snow White one, so it gets second tier post status. Aren’t I just Judgey McJudgey over here. My site. My opinions. This is Let Down Your Hair. The Rapunzel story.
That takes care of 2 more. We are at 6/20. Next up is our intermission pictures. There is/was a Dodge, now Fiat, dealership in the middle of town that always has something we like to take a picture of. So we wasted about 15 minutes there, looking at cars, while my girl complained that this is NOT what we came here to look at! She was right. Plus it was scorchingly hot on all that black asphalt. But I still took too long to take a photo of a Super Bee Charger. 392 Hemi. $46,000. Black as night paint. Called “Pitch Black”. I’ll just put those pics here to save time. The front. And the logo. That’s all anyone cares about anyway.
That should lead me nicely into Zoo pictures and Beach pictures. And also fishing, flowers, clouds, sky, birds, wildlife, and some landscape pictures that I teased with, but never posted. My goal in the next few days, (weeks?), is to get this “current” photo folder clear before it gets cold again, and before the kids go back to school. I haven’t even mentioned my summer slim down plan or what I am doing to achieve my goals for skinniness and less B/P medicine. Big fat nothing, that’s what. I am eating less. It’s only working a little bit. And very slowly. Cardio is the thing. At least that’s what the doctor said. It’s always cardio. Let me stop here and try and figure out the next post. I have to shower and do another load of laundry before I go. I may or may not post overnight. I have to get up early tomorrow to take my girl on her annual summer trip to my sister’s house for a week before school starts. And I desperately need my hair colored. I look old. Yucky gray roots. I miss my hair that used to grow in all the same color. Not fair. Then me and the boy are going to meet the BF for lunch at his work. Don’t we seem busy? Monday funday. Then I have to work all week. All week. Man. And the boy has his last week of football camp. Ok I think that’s enough of the list of things to do from one small woman in the world. If you are still reading, THANK YOU! I wish I had prizes or something, but it’s just this. Beep beep beep beeeep. Blast. That’s the timer. Measuring out my life in minutes. Load change. Shower up. Sprinkler switch. STOP. TYPING. !! Gotta go. Later.
Ahhh. Another Year Of Torture Is Complete.
The Benches are back. And I finally got an afternoon free, with all of us, for the annual “Kick-Scream-Drag Summer Event”. The official name, per the Tinley Park village program is “Benches On The Avenue” with the theme this year being “Fairy Tale Festival”. As usual, no one wants to go. And no one wants to take pictures. I was lucky to get this happy girl right at the beginning. The boy wouldn’t even let me get near him with the camera. And yes, I bring the actual camera for these, which just causes more complaining and whining about “why can’t I just use my phone??” and “we look like *swear word* idiots out here” and “why do we have to do this every year??” and, finally, “it’s so *swear word* hot out here!! Uugghh!!” Then I tell them to be quiet. and don’t swear because there are little kids around and don’t be such babies. Then I tell them how old they are to remind them. This year it’s 14 and 15. Then they just say it’s stupid and they are not doing this and walk ahead. Here is that annual picture:
But eventually the heat, and the mile or two of walking, gets them, and they have to return to the mother ship, weak and weary and beat down. Then they just shuffle quietly along side of me while I take my pictures and talk to the air around their heads. It’s a beautiful thing. And the temperature wasn’t even 100 degrees. So I don’t even know what they are complaining about.
Here is an actual bench:
This is, The Prince and the Dragon. There are 20 of them according to the village website. You can look there, and read more about this yearly event, by clicking here. I’m not sure how many of them I took pictures of. I think all of them, but I will have to go to the folder and count. I will put them up here as I have time to post. That was yesterday. Today was the zoo. Oh yeah. More heat. More walking. More pictures with the camera. The two things I like to make the kids do every year. Done. It’s going to be a busy picture posting week. The children are currently laying around the house in various, frequently changing locations, in the air conditioning, waiting for the BF to come home so we can go eat dinner. They’re “ttt-iii-rrr-eee-ddd”. But say that in a whiny, sing-song voice and you’ll feel the mood over here. And it was only 97 degrees this afternoon. With a breeze. Practically a cold snap. Cry babies. XO XO, my little darlings. Until next year…
Severe Weather Wednesday
It’s all about tornado’s, fierce lightning strikes and those crackling, rumbling, low-in-the-throat, crashing, thunder rolls. And what’s worse is when the wind picks up out of nowhere, a leaf here and there, a branch on the roof, another branch…a limb…holy hell! And your BF’s friend is trying to do you a favor and fix your WW II, rooftop, chimney pipe that is crumbling to shit, but it’s pouring down rain and the clouds are moving fast across the sky looking like they are taking aim directly at the soaking wet guy kneeling on a high roof holding sheet metal pieces, a screwdriver and a drill. Not good. Pretty damn scary actually.
I appreciate the attempt, for real, but I can’t have him being killed in the effort. Rain is one thing, this was another.
And the day started out so…semi-sunny. Storms were predicted. I went to school. Got the final info before the real work begins. Have some assignments. Reading. The usual. I feel good though. It’s the same at school, semi-sunny then storms. (To definitely mix metaphors. See Zero Effect) Mind set is what they talked about today. (And by “they”, I mean all our teachers that we met today, the speeches, the handouts, and the rundown of the schedule and how the classes are actually coordinated. All the good stuff before you are bumping around in the halls looking lost and feeling like a failure. Graduation will never come.) “They” said, “Think of yourself as the nurse. In all future questions, studies, clinicals, tests…you will be referred to as the nurse. The program doesn’t ask what you will do in two years when you become a nurse, it asks what you will do right now as the nurse. That’s a tough mind game. But not as tough as this, also told in a story, (from my memory to the page):
“An evil wizard was always trying to get rid of the beloved prince. The wizard was always thinking of ways to outsmart the prince and show him for a fool to the rest of the kingdom. But the prince was smart and he knew the wizard was always tricking. One day the wizard had a plan that couldn’t fail. He would hold a bird in his hand and ask the prince if it was dead or alive. If the prince answered alive, the wizard would crush the bird to death and show the dead bird proving that the prince was wrong. And if the prince said dead, the wizard would let the bird fly away to prove his error. The plan could not fail. So the wizard, in front of all the kingdom, said, “Prince, is the bird in my hand dead or alive?” And the prince thought about it, knowing he was being tricked somehow, and answered the wizard finally, “It is what you make it.”
“This adventure, and it is an adventure, you are about to embark on, is only what you make it. You hold in your hand the power to make it anything you want. To give and take what you will from the next few years. How much effort or how little effort you devote to this goal. It’s all up to you. No one can force you to participate or not. You will have in your hands the power to care and to comfort, and the power to heal the sick. But you will also have the power to make someone even sicker and to possibly even kill them if you are not very careful. Is it scary? It should be. But it is worth all the sweat, every drop of blood, and every shed tear”
So they say.
Truly.
I may not have it written word for word, but that was the basic story and summary. The woman who spoke it is very powerful, but quiet to listen to. She is very calming, while at the same time, managing to scare the poop out of you. But I feel that it’s all true. Why would they lie? It’s hard. But the reward is great. That’s what they say. That’s all and that should be enough. Everything else after is extra. I believe it. I worried about the whole life/death, mistake/error, kill the patient thing, and the teacher said that we should be worried. We should always be a tiny bit wary and prepared for what could happen, because anything can happen at any moment and at any place. Now isn’t that comforting? Luckily, amazingly, and more miraculously, it’s a wonder things don’t go bad more often than they do. It’s a fine line.
But I think that is enough for tonight. It’s late, and my kids have their first day of school, and I need to get up to be with them. My daughter is fine. Same school, same friends, same schedule. She’s the top class now! But my son is in Jr. High. New school, the bus (again), new classes, new schedules, new teachers, new students. Small fish in the big pond!
So, the weather is calm right now, the storm has passed for the next few hours. They say the morning might be rough, but then smooth sailing through all next week. Is this a weather report or a damn soul-searching, reflection-on-a-life-yet-lived, or what? I need to lighten it up with some kind of image. This is just the thing to restore your faith in my (ill-advised representation) sense of humor and shallow/callous self.
When we went to the zoo, so many days ago, (more pictures, I swear.) we got a few pictures of the lions. The animals were really animated that day. Like, ALL of them. It was weird. I have video of the apes and they were acting crazy. (You Tube soon, I swear.) Usually they just lay around looking like they all want to commit suicide, but for some reason, everyone was jacked up and pacing or jumping or chasing or playing…whatever the various species to do to get us humans close enough to attack. And the lion was working it! He was walking back and forth in front of this “viewing” window. Right against the glass. Stopping, looking, staring (evilly and maliciously) most likely devising some way to get from where he was to where we were. Well, not us, exactly. We were waa-aayyy in the back, trying to figure out what the lion was up to. The lady lion was trying to get a ball out of the water. But the man lion had something cooking. You could just tell. Stevie would barely let me take the pictures I took because she was sure that the lion was about to chuck it all, go for broke and try to bust out of that glass and kill us all.
At any rate, when you think about it like that, these pictures are kind of funny. The people are so colorfully dressed and so interested and amazed by the lion being so close, that I have no doubt, any one of them would say they were completely surprised and shocked that the nice little kitty would try to hurt them, even while he was chewing on one of their legs or ripping out their intestines. But you judge for yourself.
Curious animal/performer/vegetarian, aka, Alex from Madagascar OR bored/angry/ bloodthirsty, carnivorous lion, hell-bent for destruction?
Look into his eyes and then decide.
Oh!! Isn't he cute?!?!
All I see is: lunch, lunch and more lunch!
Won't all those colorful clothes, torn to shreds, covered in blood and scattered all over the ground, add that extra oomph! to the news story later when they pan the scene 50 times for our sick sense of viewing enjoyment??
Snack time! You know that lion is NOT posing for a picture. He's thinking, "I could get a head AND an arm."
The picture BELOW ↓, was taken after he walked away from the window to go take the ball away from the lady lion, in between canvassing for people. She would get it out of the water and he would roll it back in. But not that last time. He finally quit that bitch and took the ball and rolled it right off the rock wall, into the protective moat that separates the people from the lions. Then he went and laid on a rock. Playtime was over. That’s when I took my picture.
Dumb-ass, crazy humans. I'll kill them all as soon as I get big enough.
Feel better? Me too!!
Sweet dreams! Goodnight! Don’t let the man-eating lion bite!
just shy of pretty 