My favorite strawberry farm also sells veggies sometimes and today Granny May had hot chiles. I have no idea what they are but she said they are hot. I suspect they are Thai chiles because Granny May is Hmong—Granny May being a traditional Hmong name—so I guess the Spanish exclamation point is out of place in the title of this blog.
Acoustic pizza box was a new concept in instruments to me until Thursday evening when Rick Taylor, playing with Lane Baldwin at Famous Mo’s, used this 12 inch pizza box from Chicago Fire (in preference to the 16″ option that was also available) to add percussion to the acoustic guitars of Lane and David Tan. I was fascinated and the sound was great. At the end of the show, I had the band sign the pizza boxes to keep along with their signed poster. After all, this instrument is a bit easier to replace than an entire drum kit!
There was an unusual amount of activity this morning at Famous Mo’s, unusual because we are closed Sundays, but we were open briefly this morning serving coffee and breakfast. We found out yesterday that a local TV show, Good Day Sacramento, needed some “filler” for their Sunday morning broadcast and because they were already going to an event in Rocklin mid morning, they chose to visit Famous Mo’s and to film a 30 second commercial, at no cost to us. Filming commercials, actually time fillers that air a couple of times only during the morning’s three hour broadcast, is something they do for selected mom and pop shops and they apparently consider Famous Mo’s a “mom and pop shop.”
Melissa Cabral from Good Day Sacramento burst enthusiastically into Famous Mo’s about 6:45am and exclaimed that she loved the “Now Serving Lunch!Wow” sign we have hanging near the entry. The “!Wow” part of the sign is actually a single typed character of a font called “Roarin’ Twenties Counterfeit” and the exclamation point includes the wow, underlined and curved. I fell in love with it the first time I saw it and I use it often in signs that I make for Famous Mo’s, including the large banner that caught Melissa’s eye. !Wow became the theme for the commercial, and you will understand the !Wow thing when you view the actual commercial. My photo today is one I took of Melissa, after the commercial was filmed, posing for me as she waxes ecstatic over the !Wow.
There are two video segments that aired live this morning. Background Segment and Commercial. You will have to put up with a real commercial before ours airs. After the commercial aired, the Good Day Sacramento Anchor, Amy Carabba, commented that she loved the lady at the drive-thru——that would be me! Wait, does this mean I could possibly make a career, (it would be my third, !Wow) in commercials? !Wow.
Last night a Bay Area jazz quintet called Beyond Standard Jazz played at Famous Mo’s. Their music is not at all standard jazz. It is more of a fusion of many styles and made for a fascinating musical evening. Jeff Chambers is the bassist for BSJ and his Yamaha Silent Upright Bass—and there’s nothing silent about it!—fascinated me, right down to the leopard “G-string” he put on it. Jeff shows the essence of cool while he is playing this definitely beyond standard bass.
I found this heirloom tomato at Raley’s this afternoon and normally wouldn’t have given it a second glance except that two of the staff at Famous Mo’s have been plaguing me about Halloween, still more than two months away, and now everywhere I go I find Halloween displays, even candy . . . can one really keep from eating the Halloween candy for more than two months? So when this tomato appeared to be looking at me through one crazed eyeball stitched into its head and with blood red teeth, I knew I had to bring it home with me.
I never tire of taking photos of the hummingbirds. My hummers were cooperative this morning—there were two of them—but my camera lens wouldn’t stay focused because of some inadvertent changes I made to the auto focus settings so I’ll have to do something about that. In the mean time, I did capture a few shots of one in motion. The only thing in focus on the last shot is the branch he’s leaving but that makes the shot kind of interesting to me.
Occasionally on my blog, I feature “men at work” because I find working scenarios interesting and different from the usual fare that I showcase. Today I am featuring a woman at work…ME! I began the saga of me at work in yesterday’s blog entry so I won’t repeat myself today. Here I am sawing away. By the way, this shot is SOOC (straight out of the camera), something I haven’t done since I discovered it is appropriate and acceptable to improve upon RAW photos by developing them in Lightroom, the digitial equivalent of the dark room of film days.
Focal Length 70mm
ISO 100
f/4
1/640
Working in the yard this afternoon, I encountered this tiny praying mantis barely more than an inch, who kept his eye on me the entire time I tried to photograph him. The color in the background is some garden tools that I was using to dismantle a large tree branch that crashed from the neighbor’s tree into my yard (taking away my afternoon shade) and the mantis is perched on what’s left of the branch. I had to invoke my inner Ron Smith, my late husband who I swear could cut up a 40 foot oak tree and stuff it all into a single green waste container. I managed to cut and saw everything into small enough pieces and stuff most of the branchlets and all of the foliage, into my green waste container. I think even Ron would be impressed with my accomplishment. Plus, the endless dumbbell rows I do at the gym paid off when I sawed off the branches, making the task relatively easy. The heavier branches have really weighted down the container so the mantis is praying that I can manage to schlepp this heavy can to the curb on pick up day. Now only the 6 inch diameter carcass of the fallen branch remains, too heavy for me to move off the lawn. Maybe the mantis will also pray that somebody will appear with a chain saw and cut it up for me.
I was taken with this shot of two of Mojo Green’s guitar players getting their funk on! Great show. Incredible music.
This afternoon, I sat out on my patio for a few minutes, despite the heat, just to relax and enjoy my yard for a brief respite. I could hear the baby jays squawking in the shrubs and the hummingbird scolding me to go back inside. I fixated on a weathered trellis that supports one of my sorely neglected roses. Cropped like this, it reminds me of a fissured rock wall.
Focal Length 185mm
ISO 100
f/5.6
1/400
I passed my favorite strawberry farm on the way home tonight and stopped in to buy some luscious ripe strawberries and blueberries. I was inspired to take some photos of the lovely fruit that I hoped would look as lovely as it tastes. I dropped the strawberries into a blue-lined bowl, the blueberries into an orange-lined bowl and switched out the un-fruity garlic cloves that I bought from “Granny May” for some bright yellow lemons I had on hand and put them in a red-lined bowl. The photo I had in mind didn’t materialize but I decided to group individual photos of each bowl of fruit in the “print” module of Lightroom after reading some ideas in Scott Kelby’s Lightroom book.
Ten years ago, I wrote a poem, my first (and only) poem written since high school English required that action of me. It was inspired by gravity and I hadn’t thought of it for years until a few days ago when it came to mind in a conversation with a friend. This morning, I thought of it again when I got out of my car at my gym and espied a gorgeous red crape myrtle in the parking lot. I took a few shots of the crapy flowers and decided to feature my poem along with the photo. Except for the words “crepe” and “crape,” which I think mean the same thing, and the fact that I created both, there is no relationship between the poem and photo. I suspect the photo of the crape myrtle is much more appealing than a photo of my crepe paper thighs would be, however.
Crepe Paper Thighs
by Carol Smith
May 14, 2003
How did it happen?
I want to be told.
Oh please, won’t you tell me,
When did I get old?
It was so unexpected,
I ignored every clue.
How could I not notice
What now is so true?
The changes were subtle,
At first, just a few.
One gray hair among brown ones,
More trips to the loo.
Then an inch disappeared
From my usual height.
I now need bifocals
To clear up my sight.
There are lines and some creases
‘Round my mouth and my eyes.
My upper arms droop
And my weight’s on the rise.
Although I expected
Some lines on my face,
And a shift in my bustline
To some other place.
I wasn’t prepared for,
Nor thought that I’d see
Deep creases and wrinkles
From my hip to my knee.
There are facials and toners
And lots of hair dyes,
But why can’t we get Botox
For crepe paper thighs?
I took these pix a day or so ago. I’m feeling guilty for neglecting Bobo so much lately so I’m featuring her again. She’s been grumpy and acts like a petulant child, refusing to go back into her cage when beckoned to do so and she continues to destroy the molding on the window seat, despite my covering it completely with thick cardboard. She’s molting which I suppose adds to her grumpiness and she shed the tip of her beak a few days ago which is why it looks so gnarly. In the second shot, she’s pinning her eye to let me know she is displeased about something.
After I uprighted the “millstone” on my fountain this morning, which millstone had mysteriously tipped over in the night, the hummers fought for bathing rights and this guy won. I took five shots with the flash on, which ignited his gorget but I didn’t get a catchlight in his eye and the focus is only marginal. I guess my preoccupation with things other than photography lately is beginning to have an effect. Sigh.
Today at Mo’s, I watched as a mockingbird flew straight at the window from which I was gazing and landed atop the pruned privet shrub a couple of feet from the window and disappeared into the shrub. I realized it was feeding a wayward nestling that had apparently tried its wings before they were ready to be tested and it landed away from the nest, unable to get back. Mama kept a good watch on the little guy and brought bugs and worms as I watched. I attached my 70-200mm lens so i didn’t have to get too close and I approached the shrub quietly so I wouldn’t frighten the baby bird and I wouldn’t annoy the mama bird. I just took a few because I didn’t want to linger too long near his hiding place. Here he is patiently waiting for mama to return with a worm. He had worked his way to the top of the shrub by this time. Shortly after I took this shot, he disappeared. There were no predators lurking nearby and I have to assume that he gained some strength and flew to another hiding place. Mama looked for him for a while but I think she must have found him because she stopped coming to the shrub after a short time.
Baby birds are irresistibly adorable with their large eyes and Walt Disney beaks. This little guy is no exception.
It seems to me that most women are on a perpetual quest to find the perfect “little black dress” and I am no exception. I have several LBD’s but the perfect one has been elusive…that is, until now. One of my birthday gifts turns out to be that “perfect little black dress!” My friend Annie found it for me. And I can accessorize with some of the other birthday gifts I received: 7 Deadly Zin, Kendall-Jackson Reserve Zinfandel, Kitchen Sink Red Blend…. My friends know me well. Oh, did I mention all of the dark chocolate with sea salt that was paired with each bottle I received? How thoughtful.
Yesterday was my birthday and coincidentally, it was declared “Carol Smith Day” (our first annual, according to the hype) at Famous Mo’s. It turned out to be one of my most memorable birthdays ever. Mingo Fishtrap, a blues band out of Austin, Texas hit our stage between gigs on their national tour. It was an honor to have them and the packed house attested to their incredible talent and devoted following. The highlight of the evening for me was, uh, how can I put this any other way but to say, a “smoking hot, sexy rendition of “Happy Birthday” (think Marilyn Monroe singing “Happy Birthday” to JFK, only from a guy’s point of view to a woman). After they played their first few notes at soundcheck, I was hooked, but to have someone sing “Happy Birthday” directly to me, and not your mother’s “happy birthday” at that, what can I say? I am now a Mingo Fishtrap fan forever, especially of Roger Blevins, Jr. Please check out Mingo Fishtrap’s website.
