’04 January and February

Just to change the cover… a re-do of my sister and her boys.

Sweet… but skin-color Is my burden. Too much red? not enough yellow? is magenta the problem? is it a general lighting issue and an overall adjustment is necessary? Don’t you think this fancy-schmancy camera could make a proper exposure? Trial By Fire.

I’m done with that few months long exercise of keeping all the pictures horizontal. This one Wants to be vertical, a small clip from a painting at the Biltmore.

A painted ceiling in the central library.

Outside the library.

Here we are, me and my sisters, getting ready for the entertainment (and I use the word loosely), the entertainment portion of Mom’s 86th birthday party. I did that cut-out-the-chin bit. Angela is innocent!

‘Our mother’s party and she loves to eat hearty.’

(pix from Angela)

We don’t want to give it All away.

(pix from Angela)

Darryl, workin’ the room, doin’ his family proud. Something like 30 guests attended.

(pix from Angela)

Our post-performance portrait.

What with the invitation creation, extravagant games, decorations and entertainments, phewww. I guess we should compare all such efforts to The Big Eight Oooh and think of it as a walk in the park. Girls! An idea for next year! A walk in the park!

Extra thanks to Jeri for the use of her condo’s recreation room.

(pix from Angela)

Angela was a Winner, winning one of our Faaabulous prizes, and choosing the soup box google eyes… Darryl didn’t win since he was the official Judge but Angela needed his picture in soup box google eyes anyway.

(pix from Angela)

Cynthia was also a Winner and she Also chose the google eyes! Gosh, they could have chosen a box of Rice Krispies or hotdogs or an Almond Joy…

(pix from Angela)

Happy Birthday dear Angela, Happy Birthday to YOU!

Angela, I forget, who is this guy?

These guys can grow to 500 pounds. The pair here are in the 250-300 pound range. Push-up champions…

Monkeys, a story in four parts:

It’s The Kid! HiHi everybody!! Hey, give me a hand here will ya.

Mom to the rescue and Big Brother displaying his talents for The Kid’s amusments.

Wanna play?

Shortly, Big Brother is so over it with The Kid. Outta my way you.

Happy Birthday Angela!

Swans have twenty-seven vertabrae. Humans have seven and giraffes have – seven, courtesy of Dee.

Here’s first go at a shadow. I should move them back a bit as the shadow under the bike looks better than the rest of it. Play!

The Wild Bunch.
(?!)

(I know I know, the shadow needs to be more opaque, the bike needs to be either in front of or behind the trivot-y thing… more later.)

Me too!
Com’mon, I can be wild.
(?!)

At work.

Jeanne in front of her recently painted home. Lookin’ good.

A pano from the lake in Malibu Creek State Park – a beautiful Sunday outing with Burt and Charelene.

Lov-er-ly.

Burt is composing a portrait of Charlene and I’m standing on a picnic table scanning for a shot. Pretty Charlene!

This is a higly recommendable place for walking – not too steep, many directions to wander on wide, safe trails, many and varied worlds of flora, really, and the creek regularly coming into view, all a-gurgle, it’s a treat.

A picnic area in front of the Visitor’s Center, which didn’t open until noon. We ate a modest picnic, chatting away, relaxing from our morning hike and missed our chance for a peaceful visit to the Visitor’s Center. By the time we roused ourselves the place was absolutely Swarming with approximately two hundred and seventy nine high-octaine Boy Scouts.

Burt had his plans all worked out about finally Finally taking the digital plunge and then he heard something new and changed his mind, but that isn’t the point here. Right now Burt is using an Olympus…

Here’s the last sight before the parking lot. After the rigors of our outing we joined Sean Penn in Malibu for a nice lunch at Googies.

(And Angela, no, I didn’t ask him if I could take his picture…)

So very many lovely lovely ladies. Happy Birthday Alicia! and Ljubie! and Marija!

Look at ME! I’m Tall. Ok, I’m standing on a chair… but I’m tall, I’m freakishly tall.

Let’s talk about being dead, shall we. Monolog to follow.

So kids, when I die you absolutely need to do nothing or anything as far as I’m concerned since I’ll be dead. Do what you want.

I have however, played around with this idea over the years and others will have heard of it so I’ll share now.

It strikes me as so amusing – take the box of ashes (ashes, now that part seems obvious) and divide it up into two tupperware containers, and then you can each put the tupperware on the floor in the back of your hall closet. Then, when people run across it they’ll say ‘hey what’s this’ and you’ll say ‘oh, that’s Mom. She always wants to come along. Really, she’s no bother.’

Then, when your kids are ready to take you to The Home, divide the container for them and they can put it in the back of their hall closet. ‘Oh, that’s Grandma. She always wants to come along. Really, she’s no bother.’

Aunt Hillad’s funeral, Tuesday, February 10, 2004.

They went to the zoo for Valentine’s Day. They bought each other the Exact Same Card. ‘You are my Prime Mate.’

Wow, two weeks in a row!

I was out of town for Lourdes’ housewarming party so I wanted to go at the next opportunity, because I knew it was going to be Great, and I was Right. Mazel Tov Lourdes!

Why is it like this, that Lourdes is the one with closed eyes? And Lujbi, look up! The Boyfriend (who washed up the dishes oh wow) took this shot and you know how you all are; ‘Are we DONE yet?’ Next time you’ll be more patient!

We had All You Can Eat sushi for Cynthia’s birthday dinner, which is what she wanted, and then at Starbucks for desert, we all contributed instructions for the proper use of her new computer. She must have left that place spinning!

This was a week of social highlights – like for example here are Windy, Carol and Alex. Now that’s a highlight.

I had two other versions of this foto here and they were both pretty way darn cra**y. Not that this is National Geo or anything but just that in that last set I completely forgot about layer-screen-percentage-merge down and consequently ended up with cra*.

Let me file this in the Live and Learn folder.

An after dinner stroll for a Photo Op.

I forgot to do a color balance on this one but I’ve had about enough of living and learning for tonight.

It’s Happy Happy BIG FIVE-OHHH to Rosie. Do you notice even my young friends are turning fifty? Rosie put on quite an extravagaza, Fun!Food!Fantasia! with more than 50 guests filling her parent’s house in happy celebration of Rosie’s BIG FIVE-OHHH. Did I mention Rosie was FIFTY?

These are her dearest friends from high school, all of them sweet and adorable and lovely in every respect. They even let me play too.

I particularly wanted a daughter-and-dad shot but I really blew it on the family pic… I’m sure that whole story will be in some novel…

Got this message from Rosie:

‘The gorgeous lady on the right is Pamela Persaud, her sister Aneata is the lady on the left, and the gentleman in the middle is Aneata’s husband Victor.’

Nancy’s Oscar Party and feast-o-rama, Girl’s Night Out. From Sandy, clockwise, then Sharon, Susan, Paulette, Nancy and another Nancy.

Nancy, Nancy and I were in hot competition for best picks within the whole slate, not just ‘the majors’, the prize being huzzahs from the crowd. The other Nancy picked Sean Penn over Bill Murray. In the end she deserved to win for going against the common wisdom and going against her actual desire which was for Bill Murray to win. Interestingly, if you had just picked Lord of the Rings in every category it was up for you would have won.