What Do Drive-by Shootings and Government Shutdowns Have in Common?

Nothing.


This current government shutdown has probably left a lot of folks trapped in homes all across the nation, timidly drawing back one tiny corner of the drapes as they fearfully await the riots and chaos (that will in no doubt ensue). With no PBS to watch or National Parks beckoning, many will be lost as to how to productively spend their days. **

I will fight the urge to say, "I told you so".

I told everyone not to let their blogs die. 

I cried out against Face-lessbook's "declaration of nothing" status style: "Worst day ever", "My kid did it again!" "Well THAT was disappointing" (which leaves most of us wondering what the heck the poster is even going on about) and Tweeter's fly-in-and-out conversation style: "Wolf at the door", "Some cookie guy just ran by", "doing the congo behind some dude playing a flute #inatrance #wherearewegoinganyway? "

You lot are lucky I stuck around and didn't succumb to the blog-killing, story-teller silencing social networks. Stories and/or photos = Tax-FREE entertainment.

You're welcome.

What's not free is gasoline. Although our island is very small, we somehow manage to go through quite a bit on our little weekend jaunts, and since starting and stopping eats more gas, I take a lot of photos on the run (I am not above sticking my slightly expensive and very heavy camera out the window and shooting blindly).

Today, I present for your government shutdown entertainment, 

free of charge, 

Terceira Island, drive-by style:

The well-trained husband took the roundabout nice and slow for this one. One must say "Moooo!" when passing a vaca.

These ladies were awesome for being so conveniently placed!

Coming up on a Holy Ghost house. Must photograph every one- doesn't matter if the photo isn't any good.

 This Holy Ghost house was on the route of a "pilgrimage".   

"Festa da Nossa Senhora dos Milagres" is held in September.  People walk miles along the coastal road towards the village of Serreta to participate in the festivities centering around ‘Our Lady of the Miracles’.

We were lucky that one of our friendly commisario workers had told us it would be on, so we didn't have to wonder why there was a mass exodus occurring (especially since everyone was walking back toward the way we had just come).
There's a little too much "zombie viewing" in our house, so it doesn't take too much to get our minds rolling in an unnatural direction.

Ooooooh, ahhhhhhh

Speaking of zombies, am I the only one who is always calculating the best place to hide when the zombie apocalypse happens?

cobbled street of Angra

 Truth is, the theory of any safe place went to pot with World War Z.   

As many times as I pass this church, I will never again get a drive-by where the sun is perfectly placed

I love cobblestone. My tires and suspension don't care for it much, but I like it.
A few years back when Portugal made the horrible decision to join the EU and change it's currency to euros, a lot of money was dumped into the island for "improvements". Some of those improvements were to pave a lot of these beautiful, hand-laid roads.

Why am I never consulted about these kinds of changes?

Cobbled roads of a village

More churches and ugly paved roads

Traffic jam (now you say it, "Mooooo")

Yes, the camera is out the window, facing behind us. I don't care. It's Terceira's tallest church

Another camera-out- the-window-behind-us shot of Sao Mateus

 This shut down could take a while, but that's okay. I've got hundreds more where these came from...



wait, where are you going?



I was just getting ready to tell you about the bullfights!




Até outro dia.

**before anyone whips out their poison pen to berate me for being flippant about something that is SERIOUSLY affecting a lot of good people, please keep in mind that we are military. Also know that even though the POTS so proudly stated that we will get our paychecks this month, there are other ways we feel the cuts, the shutdowns, the whole craptasticness of it all- and have been for a very long time. October 1st didn't mark anything new.

The Sun DOES Revolve Around Me

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

This PSF is more about the story than the photo.

Not an overly striking photo, is it?

The Hubby and I were in London, on a very limited time schedule (5 kids, imagine that).

We were tube hopping to all the places he missed on the last limited time trip into the city.
At the Tower of London exit, we ran out of the tube station, up the stairway and he spots something I've passed several times but never noticed. A sundial.
"Wow, how cool, a sundial!" he exclaims. He was right, what a great photo op.

There was a guy posing by it (the nerve of some people, shouldn't everyone step aside when my camera comes into the area?). Since I didn't really want the guy in my photo, I waited.

and waited.

and waited.

The guy was striking every pose imaginable. It was like America's Next Top Model was being shot in this very location, only the photographer and the model look like very average tourists.

As Joe Average started walking away from the sundial, I moved up to get a good angle, only he wasn't leaving--he moved to another side and they begin another modeling moment.
Considering the time, I knew I was running out of opportunities to take a shot.

Narcissus kept on posing.

Finally, I decided that any picture I got of this thing would only remind me of the aggravating moment at hand. I realized that now I had to get a shot WITH them in it. Right as I lifted my camera and began framing the shot...
yes, you guessed it,
they finished up.

They basically flushed TWO Kodak moments for me in one go.
The nerve of some people.

I wonder how many tourists have pictures of my backside while I photographed this?

I'm Prejudiced?!

It has been brought to my attention (which usually requires a brick up side of the head) that I may be showing a bias on my blog. A gender prejudice!

There seems to be more Miss Ky photos than of the rest of the clan.
But...

I have a perfectly reasonable excuse.




I am still primarily in charge of dressing child #5 (although I have to race my husband to it, since he's really enjoying having a little girl) and have NO INFLUENCE whatsoever with the others.



So, you can look at pictures like these:


























Or these: Camo and stripes go together, right?



What ARE you guys doing?







And that's even if they have clothes on. I have more photos of this guy in his underpants (and without) than I have of Miss Ky....





Otherwise, he's a pretty sharp dresser.




Maybe I should have a poll.....

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

White Fog by Sarah Teasdale

Heaven-invading hills are drowned
In wide moving waves of mist,
Phlox before my door are wound
In dripping wreaths of amethyst.

Ten feet away the solid earth
Changes into melting cloud,
There is a hush of pain and mirth,
No bird has heart to speak aloud.

Here in a world without a sky,
Without the ground, without the sea,
The one unchanging thing is I,
Myself remains to comfort me.

Is it still Monday?

The morning was so foggy, we could barely see the yard, but by 10.30 or so it had cleared. Out came the camera.

We had lots of sunshine today. AMAZING feeling, being able to throw open windows and let the little missy wander around the garden. This child is very busy exploring and has to be watched every second-- if not, I may find her on the table (or off, if she's fallen) or up on a chair trying to reach something. The best is the trail she leaves in her wake. A testament to a short attention span: a hot wheels car, one of her brother's DS's, keys to a door (great, which door is missing a key now?!), my recently folded (and now unfolded) laundry... But today she explored the grass and the fat, wet worms (no, she didn't attempt to pick them up) while her brothers played football.These shots were taken with my Nikon D70-- the camera that sits on the shelf while I take my D50 everywhere. But my baby is in hospital (dust on the sensor lens), so I have to get over my prejudices.

As you already must suspect, I love the phone boxes, and this is the one my landlord had to have to his wife's dismay. :-)


Yesterday, I left something behind at church and had to drive the 15-20 minutes back to get it before the building was locked up. On the way home, I looked up at the phone wires that appeared to have waves of heat emanating from them. Remember, you don't take your eyes off of these roads longer than a nano second, so after several looks up, I realized that the 'waves' were actually silky webs, glistening in the sunlight.
There's ONE day in the entire week I don't grab my camera when when I leave the house. Guess which one that is...

I did go back, but by then the sun was in a different place, so I captured the webs on the bushes instead. ( This is a large upload so you can click on it to see the webs a little clearer )

Can you look at a spider's web and not think of E.B. White?

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what's a life, anyway? We're born, we live a little while, we die. A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.

Charlotte, "Charlotte's Web"

Photographer's Anonymous

I just picked up my prints at ASDA (your Walmart). I usually upload them via my Macbaby, but since it is a Mac and the general world is geared for Winbloze, I can only download ten at a time. So, to save time, we drove to Norwich.
I stood in front of the photo machine long enough for my husband to investigate the entire store, and then made friends with the elderly man behind me while we waited for the 4-foot long receipt to slowly print out.
It was a little embarrassing. Not that I had 928 prints made (and very few duplicates), but that I could only say that these were photos from December and what has passed of January.

Yes, I have a problem.

That's the first step, admitting it, right? Is there a 12-step program to weaning myself from documenting EVERY single moment in my life? Doesn't everyone have a camera on them at all times? Normal people may run into a house fire to save their cat-- I would save my photos, and hope the cat was a good runner (save your PETA-mail, we don't have a cat) (I do now have 928 new prints).

It was a little funny when I handed the clerk my ticket and she opened the puny little drawer to discover my order wasn't in there and then walked to a corner of the room to pick up this massive carrier bag (have you ever held 928 photos at once?). She smiled and said, "Just a few photos today?" What do you say to that?

"Wait 'till you see NEXT month's!"

My husband said, "maybe buying you that bigger disk wasn't a good idea." (nor was the extra SLR, a telephoto lens that can cook your breakfast, the newer iPhoto and extra hard drive to store everything on...) I love you honey!