Nest empties out - for now

It's just me, Ralph and the Brothers Furr =^..^= =^..^= for awhile.

Waaaaah!


Yay! (for our Kid One and Kid Two now at college)


Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! (for us)


Yay! (the children are happy)

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! (I'm teary)


Mixed emotions.


The Brothers Furr are certainly confuzzled.
They go in the kids' rooms, nap on the bed, nose around, not understanding what is up.

"Where have two of our staff members gone?" they seem to be wondering. They'll be back, we try to tell them.

Oh me, oh my! I really won?

My gratitude goes out today to blog friend Roger at Idaho Photo and all of the judges in his Creative Photography contest: Leslie, Chica, Dale, Elaine, and Dianne, for awarding me first prize in Week #11 of Roger's popular competition.

Woo hoo! I was taken aback when I read Roger's comment on my blog this morning congratulating me. Thanks, merci, gracias, grazie!

Seeing that I am a bit sad :-( because our daughter returned to college yesterday and our son is going off to his freshman year of college tomorrow, this honor has surely brightened my day.
I shall proudly display this award on my sidebar.

And now an impromptu one-minute photo shoot from Wednesday morning's catnap:

(Are you taking our picture again Mommy?)

(Oh well, guess we'll just go back to sleep.)

Memories in B & W

My cousin Dennis, the boy on the left, recently sent me some very old family photos and this is one of the cutest.
That's moi on the right in the sexy suit standing in my fancy backyard pool with three of my cousins.
What I found fascinating is where this photo faded - right in the corner where my late father is seen smiling as he is walking up the back steps.
To me it's like he is looking down at us from Heaven. I wish I had more photos of him. We didn't take that many pictures when I was young, I guess.
I still think of things to ask him, things that only he would know about, even though he died in 1976.
I always felt like he had all the answers to all my questions. That's what daddies are for, right?

Just ducky '>

What a life, just quacking away. I took these photos while doing a story about a 22-foot wooden power boat a California couple launched last Thursday for a "cruise" from Connecticut to Florida. They may even venture as far as Galveston.
I posted that story here.

Have a Quacky Wednesday all!

Sailing, sailing (not me, but some brave folks are!)

Last Thursday afternoon Ralph accompanied me on a fun story that was published Friday. It's about a husband and wife from California who are off on an adventure in a power boat he built a few years ago. They left from Shelton, Ct., headed to Florida.
The story was published Friday and I thought I would link "Coast couple launches sea adventure" here, since I am fresh out of blog ideas right now. The photo below, taken by my co-worker, Melanie, accompanied the story. She's a great photographer.

I've been getting two children ready to go off to college and my mother ready to move into her new condo, all in the same week.
I'm not doing all that much, but I have made myself "available" to them. I took the week off so maybe I can help somebody with something.

Melanie Stengel/Register
Derby Alderman Anthony Szweczyk helps launch the Loon, a boat owned by Colleen and Jeff Stobbe of California. Colleen is on the bow.

Ruby Tuesday

Need I say more?

Taken in Shelton, Ct.
Please forgive if someone has already posted similar photos for Ruby Tuesday. The activity has gotten so popular that I can't keep up!

To join the photo-sharing fun, visit Mary, The Teach.

Creative photo #11 ~ Bus stop memories

In honor of kids everywhere heading back to school, I give you my two on the first day of school in August, 1995.
Allegra, who was heading off to second grade, is being the helpful big sister to Cameron, who was starting kindergarten.

This is my entry in Roger's Creative Photography contest. Thanks as always, Roger, for hosting. ;-)

I'm in good company

Mary, The Teach, gave me a second award this week. I'm honored to be among the other 20 awardees!
It's the "You Give Me Happy Feet" award.

I love it!

Mary writes: "When I think of you my feet begin to tappin' and I pirouette across the floor in total delight that I will be talking/commenting to you in a little while. And of course my feet aren't the on only parts of my body that are happy because of you.
My head is boppin', my mouth is smilin,' my hands are clappin' - all because of you."

Thanks, Mary, and your blog gives me happy tootsies as well. ;-)

Meanwhile, it has been Blog Appreciation Week over at Bloggingham and Mimi, our Royal Highness, Queen of Memes, doth presented me with so many awards I don't know where to begin. I think my royal self doth need a royal afternoon nap before tackling a post about them. Thanking you in advance, My Queen, I remain,

Princess Patti (Potty Mouth Extraordinaire)

Water, water - Part 2

This morning Linus wanted in on the water fun. Two can play this game, right?
Or maybe he just wanted his picture taken by the kitchen sink, I'm not sure.

Water, water

Rigby, the smaller of the two felines we live with, loves water. Truly. He sees us heading toward the bathroom, and he makes a beeline for it. He jumps on the cabinet next to the sink, and waits for someone to turn on the faucet.
Then he is in H2O heaven. He stares at the stream of water. He seems to be wondering where it's going. He stares at the drain. Sometimes he climbs into the sink and tries to get a sip.

This morning I was running the water in the kitchen to make coffee. He jumped up and started sipping it. As you can see, he was having a grand old time for himself.

Refreshing.
Silly kitty.

You say tomato, I say...

Dang. Not all of our tomato plants are yielding edible fruit. Some have holes in them.
But I decided to look at the problem as a potential photo for a blog post. Doesn't the little guy in the middle look like he's looking right at you?I thought so.

Now I don't know what is going on, but some of the photos I've been working with have automatically been going into oil painting mode. Like this one ^ . What's up with that?

Kick Ass Blogger (woops, did I just swear?)

Mary, The Teach, presented me with an award. It's for kick ass bloggers!
I know she's one, but I never thought of myself as one.
Mary said, "MammaDawg of MammaDawg is the originator of this awesome award. Here's what she has to say about this award:

Do you know any bloggers that kick ass?

Maybe they've got incredible, original content. Or they're overflowing with creativity. Is it someone that helps you become a better blogger? Or a bloggy friend you know you can count on? Or maybe it's someone who simply inspires you to be a better person... or someone else who sends you to the floor, laughing your ass off.

Whatever the reason may be, I'm sure you know at least a couple of bloggers that kick ass. Well... why not tell 'em so?

The Rules:

• Choose 5 bloggers that you feel are "Kick Ass Bloggers"
• Let 'em know in your post or via email, twitter or blog comments that they've received an award
• Share the love and link back to both the person who awarded you and back to www.mammadawg.com
• Hop on back to the Kick Ass Blogger Club HQ to sign Mr. Linky then pass it on!

Now I award the Kick-Ass Blogger award to:

1. Linda, of Are We There Yet? (Her Duchess-ness, I call her)
2. Mimi, of Mimi Writes (she's the Queen, you understand)
3. Michael C, of The Wonderful World of Nothing Worthwhile (he doesn't post awards, but I love him anyway)

I'm cheating and only choosing three friends today.

Didn't have a post idea; enjoy this comic as I go visit blog friends

marriedtothesea.com

Ruby Tuesday

It's a RED car!
I used this photo for Ruby Tuesday because the car belongs to Kid One's boyfriend, AND because it's red, AND because our feline neighbor, Libby, figures prominently in it.

Notice my garden flag? Regular readers know that it tends to get in a lot of pictures that I take. A leitmotif, as it were.

Happy Ruby Tuesday to all! I urge you to throw caution to the wind and visit Mary, The Teach, and participate in this photo-sharing fun.

2 old 2 text

I think that's the problem. Or else I'm 2 impatient.

Yesterday I attempted to text our daughter to pass the time on our hour-long drive to a family get-together. Well, it took me about 20 minutes to send her a seven-word message.

Talk about trial and error!

Is it me, or do other middle-aged people have trouble with this texting stuff?

Creative photography #10

This lovely pink flower is on a weedy-looking (to me anyway) tree next to the garage at the house my mother is renting.
I like pink, so I photographed it a few weeks back.

Today I fooled around a bit with the oil painting effect.

And I tried sepia tone, and made the contrast more contrast-y (that's a photography term). But now it looks like B&W. Don't know why.

Here I decided to shoot the works and invert the colors.

And then I tried GLOW.

Thanks go once again to Roger at Idaho Photo for hosting the contest. Join the fun!

Political incorrectness

In the spirit of the Olympics being held in Beijing, and it being a Friday afternoon in the summer and all, I share some stuff from the e-mail bag:

Left is English, right column is Chinese translation. Read them out loud:


That's not right! Sum Ting Wong

Are you harboring a fugitive? Hu Yu Hai Ding

See me ASAP Kum Hia Nao

Small Horse Tai Ni Po Ni

Did you go to the beach? Wai Yu So Tan

I bumped into a coffee table! Ai Bang Mai Ni

I think you need a face lift! Chin Tu Fat

It's very dark in here! Wai So Dim

I thought you were on a diet! Wai Yu Mun Ching

This is a tow away zone! No Pah King

Our meeting is scheduled for next week! Wai Yu Kum Nao

Staying out of sight Lei Ying Lo

He's cleaning his automobile Wa Shing Ka

Your body odor is offensive Yu Stin Ki Pu

Great Su Pa

And some culinary suggestions for the adventurous (I might try the corn, but that's it). I'm glad I'm not at the Olympics.

Another busy week

I haven't been spending as much time as I'd like to spend in the blogosphere in recent days.

I thought I might share a story I wrote that was published today. A guy who has allegedly been abusing animals for some time was taken into custody last Friday.
Some of the facts of the case about animal abuse are enough to turn one's stomach. That's a warning from me to my animal lover friends.

Animal lover haunted by guilt

By Patricia Villers
Register Staff
ANSONIA — Irene Hudobenko says she lives each day with guilt after the death of a kitten she adopted out to a former city resident who has since been charged with 10 counts of cruelty to animals.

Read the full story here.

Melanie Stengel/Register
Irene Hudobenko cuddles her kitten, Chance, while holding a photo of his brother, My Little Boy. The two kittens were adopted by an Ansonia man, Jay C. Baldwin, who has since been charged with 10 counts of animal cruelty. My Little Boy died June 2 while in Baldwin’s care, and Hudobenko says an autopsy on My Little Boy showed “hemorrhages in the face, eyes and brain.” Chance and My Little Boy were among six stray kittens Hudobenko had rescued in April, along with their mother.

Ruby Tuesday

Red light district ... hahahahaha

When you need a Ruby Tuesday photo, simply take camera in car and photograph a traffic light before it turns green. It works for me. As you can see, I'm trying my best to have some fun around here.

Notice the "bird" on the left. Or is it a bird? Maybe it's a giant dragonfly.

To see much more creative photos, visit Mary, The Teach, who hosts Ruby Tuesday. Thanks, Mary for hosting this fun activity.

A delightful visit with royalty

"My dear, did you hear? Princess Patti and her royal family doth visited Linda, Duchess of Norwich-Upon-Thames. And the Princess doth not inviteth us to the royal festivities."

"Cinderella, my sweet, I canst not believeth my ears. We weren't issued an invitation? How thoughtless of Princess Patti."

(Sorry to cause them to get their royal tail feathers in a snit, but I can't invite those two to everything I do. I have a life too!)


We talked, we ate, we had a time that was great. Duchess Linda has already beaten me to the punch, or the pasta, as it were, by posting this wonderful account of our dinner together Saturday.
Ralph also beat me to posting about our get-together with his interesting version here.


I just don't know where to begin my tale of two tiramisus that followed a filling Italian-style dinner at The O.G.
Our server, Michelle with two ls, was as friendly a waitress as I've ever met, and the company was outstanding.
We met the Duchess late, a half-hour or so after the appointed time. We thought we had allowed ourselves enough time to travel up I-95 toward her neck of the woods. Boy were we wrong. It was like a parking lot for part of the way.


She saw that the place was growing busier by the minute, so she reserved us a table. Thanks, Linda! That made things easier when us late birds arrived.

The hostess asked us about our, ahem, name tags as we walked in. "We're bloggers," Linda replied in her best Duchess voice. I guess that explained it.
I had made us each a name tag. I took a photo of mine while wearing it, but inadvertently cut off the "Boomer."




Here you see me seated to the Duchess' left (your right) as we toast to blog friendships.








Linda focuses her camera on her sample glass of wine...






As you can see, I had shrimp over pasta. It was a bit garlicky for my taste, but I cleaned my plate nonetheless.















Our daughter Allegra, a.k.a. Kid One, and her dad strike a pose as they digest their meal.



Here are some scenic shots from our ride. The sky was beautiful. I took pictures as Ralph drove.

































The clouds were gorgeous Saturday afternoon.













I snapped a photo of this sign in honor of the Duchess of Norwich.













The clouds in the evening sky begged to be photographed as we chatted in the
parking lot after dinner.













Ralph wanted to show our Duchess the modified Ford Club Wagon van in which we traveled. So he did.

She even ventured inside the van and sat for a spell on the back seat.

I daresay it doth impressed her.

That's my account of our fun day. We do hope to get together with Linda, Duchess-of-Norwich-Upon-Thames, again soon. There's nothing like getting together with fellow royals. We understand each other, you know?

~ ~ ~