It’s Furious Balancing

I am Teh Suck at photography. My Standard Operating Procedure for all the pictures you see on this blog is:

1. Point.
2. Shoot.
3. Repeat nos. 1 and 2 six dozen times.
4. Use judicious editing and l33t Paint Shop Pro skillz to make picture look slightly decent and a reasonable facsimile of the actual object.

I love my little Fuji digital camera. Yes, it’s low budget, poky, and sucks the life out of my rechargable batteries like no one’s business, but it gets the job done 90% of the time.  Sometimes, when I’m lucky and the stars are aligned properly, I can take a passable photograph.

Mostly, I photograph yarn.  I received a batch of Noro Kureyon the other day and catalogued it for my Ravelry Yarn Stash.

Yeah, I know.  Not particularly impressive in and of itself.  Go check it out in its original size.

That’s Color 149 up above.  This is Color 102 (click here for original size on Flickr).

Noro Kureyon is an acquired taste.  A lot of people say it’s too scratchy for them. I prefer to think of Kureyon as “rustic.”  It washes up soft enough for me, delicate hothouse flower that I am.  It’s a love-hate yarn, I suppose.  The “haters” are certainly entitled to their opinions, misguided though they are, and are welcome to stick to 100% plastic Caron Simply Soft.    More Kureyon for me!

Why, as a matter of fact I am a Yarn Snob, now that you mention it….

Today, a Friday, is a pre-scheduled Mental Health Day for Laiane.  Since (a) my boss is on vacation this week, and (b)  law firms are notoriously slow in the summer, it seemed like it was time for some Planned Relaxation.

Unlike a lot of women, I don’t suffer from the “let’s take care of everyone else before I take care of myself” thing.  I indulge myself, gladly.  Today has included:

• Chocolate cake for breakfast.
• A nap on the couch with a purring kitteh curled up under my chin.
• Knitting.
• Online shopping — Some birthday presents to indulge my friends and some organic cotton sheets to indulge The Husband and me.
• DVD watching — Red Dwarf in the morning and a few episodes of Planet Earth for this evening.
• Oh, and a LOLCat.  It is Friday, you know.

But we do have lots and lots of cherries.  Our capricious cherry tree in the backyard is apparently very happy with itself this year.

Very happy as in “well-nigh deliriously happy to the point of absurdity.”  There are a few other local people I know with cherry trees, and they’re reporting the same.

Click the pictures to enlarge them (but you knew that already).

But first, the answer to yesterday’s query: The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass. “Inspection of Concrete, or, Barbaric, Mystical, Bored” is a chapter title and references the graffiti scrawled by a German soldier in one of the (pre-invasion) Normandy bunkers.

Today’s pop quiz is also book related, but it’s much easier since it’s multiple choice.

This morning, while browsing the monthly catalog from Quality Paperback Book Club, I found a book that caught my eye, made my heart beat faster, and which I just had to have.  Which was it?

(a) The brand-spanking-new translation of War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy). “Early release paperback,” granted the bottom one-sixth of a page on page 10 of the catalog; or

(b) The Nymphos of Rocky Flats (Mario Acevedo), the first book in a new mystery series featuring Private Investigator Felix Gomez, who came back from his military stint in Operation Iraqi Freedom as a vampire. Full-page color insert and featured with its companion volumes, X-Rated Bloodsuckers and The Undead Kama Sutra.

Words fail me.

Gold stars and special bonus points awarded to those of you who know the literary allusion from the title of this post without Google.

But anyway.

I’ve been completely lost for blog post topics. There have been a few ideas flitting around my head, but nothing that takes on actual substance. I’m chalking it all up to my Reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder. I’m looking at the months of June, July, and August as being similar to a prison sentence; there’s a part of me that wants to “x” out each day on the calendar with a black Sharpie. I’m about ready to dig out Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s The Worst Journey in the World, crank the air conditioning, and camp out on our sofa until the leaves start to turn and I feel like a normal human being. A relatively normal human being, that is.

You’re going to have to bear with me until I have the energy to think and compose coherent sentences. You may have to put up with a few memes and a LOLCat or two in the interim.

I’ll be back. Before September. I hope.

Click the mosaic for a better view.