Daily 3:04 pm
Kyle tells me this is a photo of the Christmas lights on a house just down the street and across from our own. It seems he got this cool effect by establishing focus, and then driving slowly past the house while the camera was actually firing. I think it’s awesome!
~MB
~KR (day fifty — 20 December, 2006)
Camera: Canon PowerShot S1 IS
Exposure: 1 sec (1)
Aperture: f/3.1
Focal Length: 10 mm
Exposure Bias: 0/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire
Daily 3:01 pm
~KR (day forty-nine, 19 December, 2006)
Camera: Canon PowerShot S1 IS
Exposure: 0.6 sec (3/5)
Aperture: f/3.5
Focal Length: 58 mm
Exposure Bias: 0/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire
Daily 2:59 pm
~KR (day forty-eight — 18 December, 2006)
Camera: Canon PowerShot S1 IS
Exposure: 1 sec (1)
Aperture: f/2.8
Focal Length: 5.8 mm
Exposure Bias: 0/3 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire
Daily 2:58 pm
~KR (day forty-seven — 17 December, 2006)
Camera: Canon PowerShot S1 IS
Exposure: 0.5 sec (1/2)
Aperture: f/5
Focal Length: 15.6 mm
Exposure Bias: 2 EV
Flash: Flash did not fire
Daily 7:21 am
22 December 2006 Yule
Daylight is just now really dawning as I write my thoughts on this beautiful, crisp (okay, cold) winter solstice morning. It’s actually warmer in Wisconsin where our extended family lives! (39 here, 45 there!) I had set my alarm for just after 6 a.m. and got up, donned gay apparel (okay, make that warm apparel!) and headed outside to snap photos. Atlantis Terrace is a great street name when you’re captioning photos! Unfortunately, it’s not such a great location for viewing sunrise. The house faces south, so I walked up the street, to the west and shot back along the length of the street. The holiday lights in my block were all dark. But just a few houses up, there were quite a few, and I had perceived the picture in my head with the light of the natural sunrise in the distance, and the blinky, blurry Christmas lights in the foreground. The horizon here, is too cluttered to actually see the sunrise, so the lights add interest to the photo. At first, I was distracted by my shadow, and I actually took quite a few different versions of this photo before I was satisfied. But, back indoors, with a warm cup of coffee next to the computer, I decided I really rather like the shadow, so I used one of my first shots of the morning. Except for the want of a tripod (again!) I’m not unhappy with the photo. But, of course, I’d rather be photographing standing stones!
Today is the ninth anniversary of the MacRalph clan visit to the standing stones at Castlerigg, near Keswick, England. Kyle and the Babes (Ginger, Lisa & MB) and Kyle’s folks experienced that incredible solstice morning, shopped ’til we dropped in the afternoon, and not one of us will ever forget that day!
Happy Yule!
~MB
Daily 12:17 am
21 December 2006
Solstice. Officially, it happened at about 6:22 p.m. CST. But, even now, an ocean away, brothers and sisters are gathered at Stonehenge and Avebury, and hundreds of other lesser known places, awaiting the Winter Solstice Sunrise.
Too long ago. I’m there again in spirit.
Today, I have dubbed, the Day of Breaking. Fortunate for me, it is shortest day of the year! I’ve been in a cleaning frenzy of late. On 31 December we’ll have anywhere from thirty to fifty people in our little house, and it takes some doing to make it even remotely comfortable for such a gathering. And, most people being considerably taller than I am, I get very concerned about the difference in perspective, and obsess a little about dusting, cleaning, and washing things that only really get dusted, cleaned or washed once a year. Curtains, ceiling fan blades, tops of picture frames (and we have a lot of picture frames!) Corners and places behind and between furniture that is rarely even seen, and quite hard to access. Today–all the furniture in our little dining room got moved, swept behind, and moved back. And the floor was mopped. During this process I was rearranging flowers in a hanging glass vase, lovingly made by our dear friend Shannon a few summers ago, and gifted to us on our anniversary by my wonderful staff at the Bristol faire. Lucky for me, the vase is still very much intact. But, only by divine intervention! One of the three beautifully-beaded strands of wire holding the vase snapped! Little green and blue glass beads went everywhere!! I was working on the floor anyway, so picking up nearly seventy (and I think I missed a few!) little beads was not that much more work.
I finished that, and finished mopping the floor; had just put all the furniture back, and was deciding it was time to run my “must-do” errand to the post office. I lifted one last item–a metal wine carrier, and a bottle slipped out of it, and hit the floor. Now, this wouldn’t have been a big deal on some floors. But, we have ceramic tile! The bottle never had a chance. “Sploosh,” and “Crunch,” are the closest I can come to the sound it made. And it was over. All over!! There was red mulled wine and little blue shards of glass all over my previously clean dining room floor. It was my brand new bottle of Fredericksburg Winery’s Christmas Red–a delightful little red designed to be heated and drunk warm! <pout>
Well, my house smelled wonderful! But, I had the daunting task of cleaning up the mess. The towels (my kitchen towels are burgundy for just this reason!!) are still drying outside, so the glass bits can be shaken from them before washing! So, again, my floor is cleaned—mopped, or rather, wiped down, and this is really no small feat. Then, I got everything put back in place again, and it wasn’t ten minutes ’til I hit a little ceramic potpourri pot with my elbow, and sent it crashing to the floor! Nothing hits this floor without breaking, but at least the bits of grey ceramic won’t hurt somebody if I missed a piece! (I did, finally, make it to the post office!)
So, when it became time to think about a photograph for today, since I hadn’t yet taken one—I thought of the broken stuff of the day. Then, I remembered this wonderful long-necked antique mannequin head I’d had for so many years, that got broken this summer. I was away, and in fact, Kyle was at work when it happened, but a shelf just pulled itself right off the wall! On this shelf sat a couple of antique books, a small oil lamp, an ancient glass piggy bank and a framed photo of my family c. 1982. The globe to the oil lamp did not survive, but other than that, this mannequin head is the only other casualty! I am thrilled to report that Daddy’s piggy bank and the photo remain unharmed in any way! Kyle (Wisely, I suppose, although it would have been infinitely easier if the stuff was just “gone.” Like “poof.”) . . . Kyle kept the broken things for me to see. The oil lamp globe was no problem. But, this mannequin, I realise now, I was quite attached to!
I have kept her all through the autumn, with the mind to glue together the parts I had. Silly, isn’t it? I’ve started half a dozen times, at least, to throw it all away. Tonight, I was doing just that, when I got the bright idea to use her as my photo for the day–perfect for the Day of Breaking. Now, I have photos to remember her by—maybe I can actually say “goodbye.”
Also in keeping with my theme of the day, or perhaps at the root of it, today is the 23rd anniversary of my daddy’s death. More than half my life I’ve been without him, and yet I still shed tears and miss him so.
~MB
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