Time for a Project! P/D/P Coming RIGHT up!

 P/D/P    Photo, Date, Place project! Let me explain that it's totally not my project, although I have (lamely) participated a time or two. All my twitter friends are invited to participate, as well as anyone else within the reach of these words.  C'mon Tinsdale!  Quick warning that the fella who runs this thing has been having a really Large Summer and hasn't updated all the bits on his site.

 But, basically, This is the deal;

Everybody in the (whole wide) world is invited to create an image and post it to the flickr group called org-pdp 

The point is to have a photo (P) on a certain date (D), anyplace you happen to be at that time (P).  This thing happens monthly and normally has a theme. Thing is, my friends, I really want to start seeing some images from my old buddies from Massachusetts showing up on the P/D/P. It can be frustrating to take the picture,  then figure out the upload (find the websites /become a member of the flickr website if you're not already) and post the image. I know. But it ends up fun and a fair accomplishment when complete. Hey, Allan, this means you. The theme for July is 'A snap of anything you like!'. You can interpet that theme ANY WAY YOU LIKE. I may take an out of focus image of my garden with the colors ramped up. I like my garden a lot! Get the idea? Please Bruce, Allan, Hannah! I want you guys to try this. It's really fun. Take a look (pop thru that link I included above) at previous P/D/Ps and see if it looks interesting. It's like being a part of a nice supportive art club with members all over the world. It's never critical in a mean way, and the group can always use some new blood. In a nice way. 

The image is supposed to be taken on or about July 5th at 1:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. I'm pretty sure. But the group isn't picky. Make an image and post it! 

Please try this? 

Summer is Here

Long Time No Blog.

Much water under the bridge. Economic downturn fueled huge lay-off at work. The human side of that was, basically, me. Which is fine, really. I mean -- nineteen years of anything, no matter how good, has got to get a bit stale. I can't help but think of it as a kind of graduation. Now I get to find out what I'm supposed to be doing, not just what I felt obligated to be doing. Yay. I'm feeling lazy, so I'll fill in with some pictures. Here we go; we shall call it, how Ms. Imagine is doing following her lay-off from work. In no particular order, I have been 

gardening, smirking and making artsie images using my MacBook. I am trying to be more social, but to be dead hon

est, it wears me out a bit. 

Basta! More another day. 

As if the Weather was of Interest and other Fairy Tales

                                                                                        

Indulge me. I'm having a sleepless night, thus the update.

1) I got it wrong on the workout thing. First off, I can't start lifting weights until I take the 'lifting weights and you' class at the Gym. Which is fine. But secondly, one is not expected to do one's entire workout in one day. Who knew? Evidently (so say the Gym guys) one breaks it up into bits to do over the course of the week. An example might be something like, cardio on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with weights on Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. Stretch every day and walk every day. That would keep the workout to an hour or so, which is much more doable with my schedule.

2) I long for some satay. It's not really a *want* it's a need. I think I want to try this one as I seem to have mislaid the last one I did that I really liked. With satay, the longer the list of ingredients, generally, the better. I may adjust this one to suit my taste as I get on with it. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ food/recipes/database/chickensataystickswi_71312.shtml

You may need to cut this url and paste it to make it work. For some reason it doesn't want to make a proper link and at five am, I don't want to deal.

3) And finally, all the snow melted then it snowed again. All I can hope for is that there will be enough to ski on, come the weekend. Fingers crossed. I admit, though, I miss riding my bike so much it literally hurts. Spring soon, snow notwithstanding. 

And, for balance, here is a very recent photo of my beloved son, caught handily and painfully in the highly hormonal clutches of adolescence. Maybe it's just me, but I think he's a charming young man. 

More Snow and More Cooking

Well, it did snow for me again, to my great joy. I find (perhaps not surprisingly) that the more I ski, the more fun I have skiing. So I’ve done some of that here lately. And I’ve been cooking up a storm. I had this very nice recipe for risotto that I got from the NPR cooking show. You know the one? ‘The Splendid Table’, it’s called. They publish a weekly newsletter which includes a fun, seasonal and pretty-easy series of recipes. I was going to attach a link to the recipe, but I couldn’t find it! Here is a link to ‘The Splendid Table’ anyways in case you get feeling ambitious.

http://splendidtable.publicradio.org/

So I made the risotto according to the directions (as I’m not that familiar with risotto, I stuck to the game plan) and it came out fine. Long story longer, I liked it so much that I wanted to do it again, only I’d finished the white wine and it was rather blizzarding so I didn’t really want to get out again if it wasn’t absolutely required. So. I used red wine. I wish I’d taken a picture of the results. *Not*. Okay, it tasted FINE but it did look kind of weird.

Not a busy news week, but we do what we can. Here is a brief visual update of the size differential that has been developing between my son and I. He finds this especially amusing. My foot is on the right. Right.

So, that’s all the news that isn’t. Take care and hope to hear from you soon.

Love, from Ann Arbor!

Breaking News - Lunar Eclipse and Really Good Soup!

1) There was the coolest eclipse of the moon I’ve ever seen. Wait. I’ve never seen an eclipse of the moon, so that’s not such a tough thing to come up with. But still. It is a rare and pretty thing, thus its inclusion. So there. One of my neighbors who lives downtown took this photo of the full eclipse. Don’t ask me why you can see the moon at all, ‘cause I’d have to make something up. Bottom line is that the moon looked like a silver dollar, then it slowly turned into a three dimensional tangerine colored sphere. Then, slowly, it turned back into a white-fire silver dollar. It was tres cool.

2) There isn’t enough snow to ski on, which is disappointing.

3) My chiropractor has counseled me to alter my workout. He warns (and I quote), “this is going to hurt but, long-term, it will be good for you”. I can hardly *wait*. In fact, I’m writing this blog just now, part-way in order to avoid going to the gym. Sigh. I used to just go in, get on a stationary bike, run the thing up to my workout heart rate and keep it there for thirty minutes. After that, I’d stretch for a bit and walk a fast mile on the indoor mini-track. Those days are done. He actually patted me on the back as he broke the news. He said that my old workout was (and I quote), “a nice start”. Snap. So now I need to go in, stretch first, do the rowing machine for thirty minutes, do the stationary bike for thirty minutes, walk a couple of miles then (THEN, I say) go over to the weight room and start a careful and slow lifting program. So. Evidently this will make me young again. I don’t think I ever really WAS young to begin with, but that’s just me. At least, if I was, I musta missed it.


4) I am proud to say that I did a really bang-up job on some squash soup yesterday. Too bad you’re too far away to be invited to try some. It really came out good. Here is a link to the recipe. Just double click on the link to view the recipe.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/butternutsquashandgi_66049.shtml

5) My boy Noah has applied to Community High here in Ann Arbor. It’s the local alternative (read, ‘hippy’) high school here in town. There is a lottery system to get in, so we’ll have to see how that works out. Fingers crossed for him! Here is a link to the school web site. Again, just double click on the link below to see more about the High School that Noah wants to go to. To the left, here, you can see some grafitti art created by Community High Students. What, as they say, is not to like??

http://www.a2community.org/community.home/home

So that’s about it for this week’s news. I hope this format works for you and that you will choose to make comments at some point in future. I think it would be fun, but youknow, whatever you want to do is cool with me.

Play in the Snow and Other Things and Stuff

Our first news story involves playing in the limited amount of snow that we get, here in the Mid-Western city of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Since we are on a peninsula, the microclimate acts a bit like Cape Cod. Dark and crappy weather with not nearly as much snow as our neighbors in, say, Minnesota. 

So, I bought a cross country rig from the local second-hand shop (great stuff, cheap). I get out there and ski every chance I get. I ski that much faster for having to beat the sun home after work. 

To answer a few outstanding questions from earlier communication; 

1) It did snow and the snow has remained on the ground in enough inches to allow me my funny fally-downie fun. 

2) The swords that my son uses to fence with are made of metal. He fences with foils, epee and saber. The tips are covered and the fencers wear padded gear. To be struck still hurts, though. He is a very brave boy.

3) An iphone is a cell phone made by Apple. They are also an internet connection with email and all, and as well, a music player. Clearly a want not a need. Ahem. 

4) Bruce sent me wonderful images of you, Allan, and pictures of David and himself and his girlfriend (woman-friend) Hannah. You are all lovely. Made me well up, really. 

That's all for today, but I will update the 'News' every chance I can. Please feel free to comment or ask questions. I'll get to them as I can.