utenzi

I had my first holiday season social visit today. Chris, my former girlfriend, stopped by on her rounds and dropped off some homemade cookies and Hershey chocolates with me. It was hard to believe I'd not seen her in over 4 months. Time does have a way of winging by, doesn't it? In any case she was looking quite lovely as you can see below. To the left you can see the tin of cookies she brought me, as well as the bag of Smarties that she was getting ready to grab and run with. While Chris isn't overly fond of sweets--unlike me--she does like the occasional Smartie. Of course that 19 ounce bag will hold her for a couple of months but would only last a couple of days with me. That probably also explains why she's so much thinner than I am. I don't know what happened in this picture. Something weird with the flash, I guess. But even with that weird light effect over Chris' head, it's her smile that really lights up the picture. You can see that she was clutchin...

This weekend is dedicated to some cooking, reading the two most recent Harry Potter books and maybe finally doing that woodworking project I've talked about before, the window seat. I started rereading the 6th Year Potter book, Half-blood Prince , last night around midnight and tonight I've almost finished it. I wasn't planning on reading much of it today since Chris and I were doing some cooking and a bit of movie and tv viewing, but as you can see to the left--she conked out on me so I got my book out and now, at 11pm, have almost finished it. It's been 2 years since I originally read the Half-blood Prince and I'd forgotten just how fast the reading goes. Rowling uses a great deal of dialog and books like that are very fast reads. I've been putting off reading the new Potter book and since I'd forgotten a lot of the plot from the first 6 books, I decided I'd best read at least one of the older books just to remind me of what's going on to date. Be...

A couple of weeks ago Chris went to a family reunion. She didn't bring me. The gods weren't happy and struck down her deck umbrella. An alternate explanation might be that she left the umbrella unfurled and vulnerable on a stormy weekend. Toe-may-toe, Tah-ma-to. Y' know? In any case that to the left is what is often referred to as the short end of the stick . Umbrella stick, in this case. As you can see, the wind (aka god's wrath) frickin' snapped that puppy like a twig. Actually, I suppose in a way the umbrella pole is a twig like thing so it makes sense that it was snapped that way. In any event, Chris asked me to load up the umbrella into my car at the end of last weekend and take it back to my house where I could have the pleasure of repairing it. Whee! Here's more background, the umbrella was on her deck when she left for the weekend and was gone when she got back on Sunday. The next day she looked around a little and the part that snapped off had sailed ri...

Chris likes giving little presents. So far she's given me chocolate covered cherries, a very pretty candle and some neapolitan Hershey kisses. Now added to that list are 3 more items. In the picture on the left are 2 of them. There's a 4-pack of little bottles of wine. The Riesling is my favorite wine and the small bottles are so cute. I'd never seen this wine packaged in the mini-bottles before. Chris also gave me a container of special sugar for rimming glassware for mojitos. Do you think she's trying to tell me something with all these alcohol related gifts? In any case, both gifts are very thoughtful and have such pretty packaging-as does Chris, now that I think about it. I've not tried either gift out but I suspect the mojito sugar might get a workout either today or on Wednesday. I intend to pick up the fixings for mojitos on my way home from work today. And bread. I'm out of bread. Have to remember to pick up bread too... The third present is these silk s...

They say to beware Greeks bearing gifts (due to that Trojan Horse gag, y'know?) but since Chris isn't Greek, I don't know what to think. Chris came by after work on Friday and gave me this pretty candle, the lovely 3-D card at left and below, and that attractive gift bag with lots of Hershey kisses (Neapolitan flavor). She wasn't staying long since she needed to be in Charlotte all day on Saturday but it was still good to see her--and she was going to be back on Sunday to visit. Unfortunately I hadn't considered getting her anything so I had no present to give her in return. How serious do women take these things? Can anyone give me any advice. BTW, would the fact that she cleared all her things out of my bathroom be significant? Here's a different angle on that card. Isn't it clever? Once you fold the card out it looks like a fish swimming in an aquarium. What a nice card! (and again, I didn't get her anything) I don't have to work today since I too...

As anyone who knows me can attest, I do love to tease. Chris, from what I've gathered so far, is too much of a straight-shooter to tease. However she has warned me several times that she can spoon out at least as much as she gets--and that card I posted yesterday seems to be her warning shot in the teasing game. Inside her words were sweet and caring--quite a contrast to the warning message on the front. *whew* And to make the surprise even nicer she decided to visit me for a few brief hours before zooming off to have a birthday dinner/party with a group of long time friends up in the wilds of Virginia. No boys allowed, dammit. This is Chris preparing to depart for her party. She's wearing shades so you can't see those lovely green eyes. But you can see from her smile that she's already thinking about all the presents she's gonna get. LOL Can you say "Princess"?

I got a greeting card in the mail today. It's from the girl I started seeing a few weeks ago. The cover doesn't bode well... There's always a certain feeling of anticipation and also worry when you get a card that's not associated with a holiday or personal milestone. If it's your birthday you expect to get a few cards, same thing around Christmas or perhaps St Valentine's Day. But a card that arrives in the void betwixt days like that--well it could be trouble. "My life was just fine until you came along..." That's not a line to inspire confidence, y'know? This card from the Chipolte Girl made me curious about the entire greeting card industry so I wandered around the web for more information, getting most of it on Wiki . After all, an industry that only made money on birthdays and a few holidays probably wouldn't stay in business long. So how do they sell all those cards? As it turns out, According to Wiki , the greeting card industry re...

You might remember this picture from yesterday. The subject's name is Chris and it was taken at Duke University in the Sarah Duke Gardens on the Eastern edge of the campus. I've received two Emails asking how I achieved the affect in this picture and a few comments on the blog as well. Even Chris wondered how much Photoshop magic was involved. Well, none to be exact. The picture to the left has been shrunk down a little to fit on the page--the original file size was 2 meg and was 2200 something pixels across--but that's the only adjustment I made. The affect was actually the result of clumsy happenstance. I had been taking a few pictures in a shaded glen of small blue flowers so I was using the flash to light them up. I then decided to take a closeup of Chris' face with the glen as a backdrop. I kept the camera setting on macro but forgot to shut down the flash--so when I took the picture Chris' face was extremely overexposed. It was an oversight--I simply forgot to...

I did a lot of Spring Cleaning on Saturday. I had forgotten how rough cleaning is on the body--and getting older (and fatter) doesn't help in the least. *whew* I was doing a lot of de-cluttering as well as plenty of mopping and vacuuming with cleaning two of my bathrooms to cap it all off. This place was a disgrace! And there's still so much to be done--but at least it's started. While the house is still quite cluttered, it's a great deal better than it was last week. My body is frickin' pissed off though. My hamstrings are just yelling themselves hoarse in little jabs of pain every time I stand up or bend over. It's quite sad that a little bending over to pick things up or scrub out a tub could make me this uncomfortable. How do people that do this every day--as in tidy folk that don't live in the midst of clutter and dust like I do--cope with the strain on their muscles? And the allergy attacks that all that disturbed dust creates? Oy! I rewarded myself ...