It's What I Do

I take pictures.

I've only just realized that when something interests me I tend to get a bit compulsive. If I think back over my life there have been different phases of compulsiveness, beginning with sewing, which kept me occupied for many, many years. It is kinda fun looking back at old pictures seeing all the old clothes I made that everyone wore except for Bruce; he was exempt from homemade clothes. In fact, in our foyer there is a picture of me with my mom in a gown I made for her when I was around 17. She would have been 46 at the time. I remember it was for a big charity ball and I was put on serious restrictions because I didn't work hard enough on it, instead spent time with Bruce when he visited. And then there was cross stitch, quilting, cooking, of course reading goes without saying. You will notice an absence of anything physical.

So now I'm obsessed with photography. Today there will be pictures, and more pictures. I was absolutely delighted to see this on the home page of the Times:

Nothing escapes Matt, even though he is far, far away. He posted a version of this on his blog (link to that on side bar--fiftyfivehundred), his is infinitely better than mine because I've no idea how to do a screen capture even though Jonathan has tried to teach me how to do it. Matt called me "intrepid" which sounded kinda good and the feature "crowd sourced". What it amounts to is that they've asked for readers photos, which of course as it turns out, I have plenty....

Somehow I've deleted my sidebar!! A project for the morning.

I neglected to mention swimming on the above list just because it is part of who I am--I've never gotten over my love of water. When we bought this house nearly 14 years ago I was so thrilled to finally be able to have a pool. It was a shame that the children were mostly grown--Jonathan used it before he became addicted to a computer game that will go unnamed, and, truth be told, Bill and Dave did plenty of tanning in the pool during their modeling days. Anyway, those few faithful readers, and you know who you are, know that the chore of keeping the pool up has come up lots, probably too many times, in this blog. After getting rained out at the market on Sunday, I arrived home to find this pool cleaner (study photograph). Mr. Bruce surprised me--Christmas in June!!! The only trouble is that it's not working just right; we seem to have an air leak which is causing it to crawl, not buzz along the bottom, as it should. Tomorrow I'll probably have to call a repair person to get things working properly, and then I'll be in hog heaven! The pool looks mighty good though....

Because it seems as if Mr. Bruce has the obesity gene in his family I'm trying my best to help him not gain any more weight. Traveling for a living doesn't help much, eating out all the time. At home I've been making soup (the splatter incident, you may recall) and other meals with lots of veggies. Last night we had this:

Pretty huh? I love deviled eggs, somehow I don't make them often enough although I made my share while Mom was dying. I'd make a big batch and she'd have them for lunch because they were so easy. I've finally learned how to make them just right so peeling is a breeze.

Tonight the Magic take on the Lakers at home. This is a do or die situation because we are down two games. This afternoon Michelle and I were chatting about Sunday's heart breaking loss in LA, with her saying she almost cried when they lost in overtime. When I parked the Element to take photos of the Church Street Station for the calendar contest I saw this:

When I was looking for photos to put on the blog today I thought that this is how most fans feel right about now--deflated, and hanging on by a thread (string. The city is emblazoned with Magic paraphernalia right now with massive poster type things on the high rises downtown. While watching the games from LA I wondered how Orlando would hold up to such pressure--turns out not so good. Tonight, however, the fans are still hanging in there (balloon metaphor), let's hope the team and Orlando put on a good show for the worldwide audience expected to tune in!

You know how I started by saying I was compulsive about certain things, maybe it would have been clearer if I'd said I was obsessed. Yes, that's the correct word for it. The Magic--I was obsessed with them for years, only letting my interest wane in the last few. The boys will remember that Bruce and I went to the very first exhibition game twenty years ago while Maureen watched them. I spent years listening to the radio broadcasts of games while sewing nightly....obsessed, that I was. Tip off in about an hour. Let's go Magic, let's go!