Gravity's Lens

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We asked that nobody get us anything for our wedding but you just can't tell some people "no" and my family chipped in and got us a set of china which makes us all grown up and stuff now. So we had a tea party this morning.

You can't really have Vegemite out when Hennepin's around though.







We're off to the summer picnic at the Philadelphia Sketch Club. I think tomorrow we shall be serving high tea. I wonder if Hennepin will let us eat vegan cucumber sandwiches in peace....



Say something nice to someone for no reason today.

This book isn't a bad book, but I rather feel that the title is misleading and slightly out of date now.

The book is a mixture of biography (he gives snapshots from his own life to support his thinking) and political manifesto in which he explains his ideas about education, health insurance, religion and the like.

I live in America, and reading this book would have helped me understand Obama as he ran for the Presidency. Now, however, it feels slightly out of date. The economic tsunami of 2007-09 isn't mentioned (the book was before it), and that impacts how you're going to read this book. You'll sit there thinking "have you really thought how much this is going to cost?"

You might argue that this book might help you understand his Presidency, and you're right I guess, but I'm in two minds about that. I have a nagging sense that this book might have been overtaken by events.

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I'm doing my own "cooking for one" for a while.
Tonight it was a hamburger, slow cooked in an iron skillet, smother in onions, also slow cooked over butter in that same skillet.
There was no cold beer available, so it was washed down with a Coke.

But, I did make it healthy. I ate it between two slices of toasted twelve grain bread!

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Kick ass demo:



There is incredible creativity in the iPhone space.

oh hell.
loaner wheelchair is too low, has no useable footplates and no positioning belt. in short, it makes me crazy, but it's better than nothing. MY wheelchair is still in "cleanup" stage and i won't hear anything until at LEAST wednesday. i guess they do detailing while it's there, which is kind of awesome i guess and i'm sure i'll appreciate it later on, but ARGH!
tried using the footplates, and it just ended up being problematic. am going to make small second trip out without using the footplates and hope that goes better. (plus it's an excuse to get ice cream. srsly, it's hot out. WTF is this 87 degrees crap?)
how are you today? i'm hoping to do some writing when i get back.

My spot by the water yesterday...


I'm in love! This is súch a cutesy! And so merry!


For Illustration Friday today's theme was "Tango"....so....

Wouldn't you like to know.

Goodbye my little rainbow.


I'm going to tell you a story, and although, like all good stories, there are some sad parts, it is a happy story. You have to trust me.

There was a cat. She was desperate and doomed, as were her children. One day she was kidnapped and her children taken away. The catmother never got over this, but she lived warm and clean and well fed and was no longer desperate nor doomed, though she was always a bit sad and a bit afraid. One day she died, but her children, far from desperate, far from doomed lived wonderful, beautiful lives because she had found for them everything a catmother could ever hope to give her children, and much more.

You people are great, shining beams of light. Yesterday I got a surprised email from City Kitties their email box was flooded, in the last 24 hours, more than $600 has poured in. Check out Ike, the first kitty you all helped because of YOU he was able to get medical treatment and is now looking for a home. Ike loves people and has a chance at a wonderful life with a wonderful person. Thank YOU.

As if she knew our time was limited, Momcat slept in the bed with us Wednesday night -- taking over Trillian's pillow and dividing the bed exactly in half-- one half for her, the other for us -- we were welcome to stay with her as long as that line was not crossed. We squeezed in and she stayed there the whole night. Yesterday morning she investigated the New Favorite Cat Spot on Earth: the newly screened in porch. I figured that was probably about the best place for her to be, so she spent last night out there, hanging with Roswell and eating canned food. We moved a litter box out there (which trillian_stars noted that she was spending a lot of time sitting in -- typical momcat.)

I've been spending some time out there working -- she doesn't seem to mind if I'm out there, as long as I promise not to get too close.

We're waiting for the vet to call back. If her last day on Earth is spent on the porch, sniffing the air and watching the birds, then she's spent it in the way all the other cats in the house would choose to.





You people make me proud. Thank you. I'm reminded of the last scene in Camelot....

“One of what we all are, Pelly. Less than a drop in the great blue motion of the sunlit sea. But it seems that some of the drops sparkle, Pelly. Some of them do sparkle!"

You sparkle.

I've been working on a photo project.

There was a midnight deadline for submission.

The uploading process is complex, and took nearly an hour. If it could go wrong - IT DID!

But, everything did make it, the entry was accepted, and the confirmation on my application fee was time stamped with ninety seconds to spare.

Not quite the way that I intended, but I'll live with it.
[No one ever asks the Doctor if that diploma on the wall came with "A"s or "C"s - it's only the result that counts.]

I'll know the result on this one in roughly six months. It's a long shot - over 1,000 very good competitors - but I'll challenge anyone, just for the fun of it, and I know that mine is good. That means that if they want it, they'll have to be better, and really that is what the whole of life is all about.

Me? I'm off to bed.
The cleanup can wait till morning.

the same beautiful place you have seen a million times before.
i stood atop the hill nearly an hour. just listening.
it was so quiet there.
so tranquil.
serene.





click for larger.
and captions.

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There are at least three common words in the English Language that contain all five vowels.
One is an object that you probably own.
One of the others is descriptive and has all five in order.

Without doing a lookup - name at least two.

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