Saffy, you're not in Iowa . . . !

Grandma Jo strikes again! Not satisfied with the wonderful little shiny black shoes for Saffy's first Easter, Jo took her quest a little farther, over the rainbow to be exact. Now little Saffy has the means to make that journey. I guess Snoopy and Tina will go by the names, Toto 1 and Toto 2 and join forces to fight off the Wicked Witch of the West and her Flying Monkeys. Jo is rehearsing as Good Witch of The North. (In my research, I found that in the original story it was The Good Witch of The North that gave Dorothy silver slippers. But, to take advantage of the wonders of Technicolor, the movie makers changed them to ruby red) I'll be content staying behind the curtain calling out encouragement to adventurous little traveler. Here are a few pics of Saffy preparing for the journey.

Saffy dons her best Cubs outfit hoping that a "Good Witch"
will cast a spell for a World Series Championship for the Boys in Blue.

Okay, the slippers pass the taste test.

"How do these things work?"

"Do these shorts make me look fat?"

"I thought this road was made of yellow bricks."

"Damn Flying Monkeys!"

A Few Thousand Words...

They say a picture's worth a thousand words.

So... you won't have to read thousands of words....

April Fools Day came about 13 days late this year.

Saffie meets "Shiny Shoes".

Saffie meets Cabbage Patch Kid, Angie.

Saffie greets Angie..

Saffie eats Angie

Saffie thinks it's pretty funny when Angie falls down.

Evil Saffie and Angie plan their next caper.

Mission accomplished.
Grandpa's remote is being held for ransom.

Cute as a Button

As I walked by our "guest" room the other day something caught my eye. I should explain that our "guest" room has become the "Saffron" room as it is filled with babysitting paraphernalia and Grandma supplies. Anyway, there nestled in the playpen/portable crib sat the tiniest pair of patent leather (probably plastic) shoes you've ever seen. Seems that Grandma found these little "shinies" and couldn't resist the thought of slapping those babies on the littlest Baby Blume. Easter is coming up in a few days and Saffie is dropping in for a visit. Well that little unsuspecting kid is gonna get those shiny shoes shoved on her little feet. Little does she realize that "Patent Leather Shoes Reflect Up" although at six months old it hardly makes a difference. A peek at a diaper is far from exotic. I was so fascinated by these teeny scuffs that I had to try to photograph them. Remember, I grew up in Catholic schools where any girl that wore patent leather shoes was dragged off by Sister Superior (most likely by the ear) only to return in stocking feet. I feared that word might get out that I was harboring a pair of "Satan" shoes right here in my home and only two blocks from the Catholic Church not to mention the fact that I was blatantly shooting patent leather porn. Would the good Father from St. Marys be heading down the street to perform an exorcism? And this guy is tough. Remember he's the one who is openly a Bear fan in the middle of Packer country. The main thing those little shoes taught me was how inadequate a photographer I really am. Patent leather shoes not only reflect up but but down, left, right, north, south, east and west as well. Or not at all if they decide not to. So after more than a hundred shots and a lot of PhotoShopping the shot above is the closet thing that I have to show off the cutest little shiny shoes around. Maybe Sunday, once they're installed on Saffie, we'll get some proper, cute, shots. After all there will be a lot of other people with cameras taking their best shots. It has taken me three days to finish up this post and I already have the next one ready to go so I guess we'll just post this and move on. By the way, I kept on shooting and finally got a fairly decent shot of those "Shiny Shoes".

Blog Clog

I guess it's been more than a week since my last post. I don't have a reasonable reason for not posting except all of my great "Blogworthy" ideas took off for Spring Break. Sure we took a quick trip to Chicago to visit my mom, daughter Elaine and my new Grandnephew Gavin, and we got together with Derek, Jeanna and Saffron a few times, and Elaine and grandaughters Catherine and Elizabeth ventured into Wisconsin to see Saffron and family, and Jo and I drove down The River to Savannah Illinois for a picnic at The Palisades. Just nothing overly Blogable. In Mother Nature's world it's a time of change. Things are shifting around. Eagles heading farther north, Vultures taking over their "hunting grounds". The big migrations haven't gotten this far up the river yet. Although I did see a small flock of Pelicans a couple of days ago and the Blue Herons are nesting (at least down Chicago way). And I did manage to get a few photos of them while driving back from Chicago two weekends ago. The biggest event (actually there are two) was that I discovered that by reading the instruction book for my camera, I found out how to increase my zoom to 48x. Now all I have to do is find out how to hold the camera still long enough to get a sharp image. Big event 2 is that I bought a film/transparancey scanner. This means that when I dig out my old negatives and slides I can start scanning them and bore you to death with thousands of old pictures. Wow a whole new supply of stuff that I can make up lies about. For now I only have a couple of shots of "Heron Town" on the AT&T campus outside Chicago.

These were taken before my giant zoom discovery.
Next time you'll be able to read the logos on these guys caps

Damn Kids!!!

Recently Microsoft has been running TV ads featuring little kids doing wonderful things with their new photo program. And these are really smart a_ _ kids, bragging about how clever they are AND how young they are. I've been struggling with my "old" version of PhotoShop (the original program came to me on a 78 rpm record) for more years than these kids have been alive. I'd like to see those little smarties walk barefoot, uphill, in 12 foot deep snow for seventy two miles just to get to the outhouse. Well I'm not giving in to these miniature manipulators without a fight. I've put together a few before and after examples that I'd like to see those keyboard krawlers equal.

Try this short fingers!

Before

After

Before

After

And, top this one, you little creeps!

Before
After

3.14159265358979323846…

Tomorrow = March 14 = 3.14 = π.

No matter what you call it, it's PIE day! This is great. Two pie days in one year. I'd really prefer about 365 pie days a year. You may recall (you should have it circled on your calender) January 23rd is officially "National Pie Day" but to the mathemaniacs out there March 14th takes the honor. No matter how you slice it, (preferably in very large slabs) every day is a better day when there's a pie cooling in the kitchen, or in a restaurant, or in the bakery, or at a grocery store or even (although they don't make very good pies) at WalMart. In short, there's no excuse not to celebrate Pie Day either mathematically or gastronomically. Now get out there bake, buy or steal a big piece of pie. Start today! You never know when the bottom may fall out of the pie market.

Here's a reminder of how Sally and Uncas

celebrated back in January

All Done!!!

Mission accomplished. Operation "Kitchen Project" (code named KP) has been completed. Jo and I added the final touches Saturday carefully placing an edited down version of our collection of tins atop the cabinets. It took great restraint but we managed cut back the number of treasures (junk) we had on display here there and almost everywhere in the "old" kitchen. For some reason I didn't have the foresight to take any "before" pictures. One I took at the "2008 Cookie Baking Day" will have to suffice. So, let's let the pictures do their thousand words job...

I used a picture with a lot of clutter
so that the revise will look even better

Finally Jo and I get to sit down, relax
and watch that new fangled HDTV