I decided to submit my photos to two of the upcoming themes at Jpg Magazine. If you’re interested in voting, click on each photo and it will take you to the Jpg site, but you must be a member to vote.
Category: Photos
Little birdy feet
I had a rather traumatic start to my day this morning. I was woken up about forty-five minutes early by the noise of Yuuki falling from his perch and crashing to the floor of his cage – not an unusual occurance for him. Normally he recovers quickly from this sudden attack of clumsiness, but this morning it sounded to my sleep-fogged brain like he was taking an awfully long time to sort himself out. I got up to uncover his cage and take a look, and when he didn’t seem himself, I reached in and brought him out. This led to a panicked flight around the room that ended with a crash landing down the side of the bed, and a lot of freaking out from both of us. I was stressed, he was stressed, so I put him gently back into his cage where he sat on his perch in a disheveled feathery lump, feet splayed wide, and one eye closed.
Now convinced that Yuuki was going to die, I started to make plans for calling in sick at work and wondered what time the bird hospital on Broadway opened. I lay in bed watching him, knowing there was nothing I could do except hope for the best. Over a ten minute time span he slowly perked up until he was moving around at his normal energetic pace, and when he went over to the toy bells to bang around and make noise, I knew he was fine.
The whole experience reminded me a bit too much of what happened with the lovebird I had before Yuuki. I woke up one morning to find her very unwell, and despite a visit to the emergency animal hospital, by the end of the day she died. I’m very relieved this wasn’t the scenario I had to go through with Yuuki this morning. I’d like to have the little guy with me for a long while to come.
Yuuki’s photo set on Flickr.
You are here
Five great things from the week:
1) Monday afternoon’s long vigorous walk in Pacific Spirit Park with Christina. We were treated to hints of golden light through the trees near the end of our walk, and the sun followed us as we drove home.
2) Dropping by Jamie and Maja’s for dinner on Sunday evening after our long ferry ride from Salt Spring Island. Unsurprisingly, Jamie makes really delicious cookies, but did you know he also barbeques a delightful pork skewer? (Meat cooked by a vegetarian….yum!)
3) Getting sucked into a really good book and reading the whole thing in a few short days.
4) An unexpected trip to Daiso with Hendrik, and laughing with him over the hilarious hamster stationery.
5) Savouring the tantilizing taste of White Truffle Chevre on Leslie Stowe raincoast crisps purchased from Salt Spring Island Cheese for our snacking pleasure. It was to die for.
Yellow ‘brelly
I have a large stack of DVDs on loan to me for the next while, and last night I vegged out to watch Hiyao Miyazaki’s “My Neighbour Totoro”. I’ve been wanting to see this film for awhile because a friend of mine is such a fan. It’s a very sweet movie, filled with the unusual magical creatures, clever little girls, and beautiful scenery that is typical of Miyazaki’s films. If it could ever be possible, I would like to ride around the Japanese countryside in the cat bus just to sit in one of its warm and furry interior seats. I’d also love to live in an old wooden house just like the one featured in the film, with sliding doors, wooden bath tubs, and tatami mats on the floor.
(I hear Japan calling…)
Butterfly rain
On Tuesday afternoon, sometime between my arrival home after work and departure a few hours later for a movie, the weather took a decisive turn into autumn. There was rain, gale-force winds and the kind of penetrating damp that seems to cut through every layer of clothing straight to the bones. Today I am wishing that it rained butterflies, as illustrated in the above photo taken of Toronto graffiti. Wouldn’t that be pretty?
Tamed orchid
LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Most flowers depend on pollinators to reproduce. Birds and insects brush up against a flower’s male parts, picking up pollen that they leave on the female parts of the next flower they visit. But nature has created an anomaly that doesn’t play by these rules. A wild orchid known as *Holcoglossum amesianum* fecundates itself. Its male bits actually move, carrying out a complicated maneuver to reach around and down to deposit pollen directly into its female portions. This orchid is your power symbol, Leo. I hope it encourages you to learn more about self-fertilization–to increase your mastery of the underappreciated art of inspiring and teaching and taking care of yourself. Halloween costume suggestion: a hermaphrodite carrying a wild orchid.
The best part about this horoscope is that I AM currently learning to “increase my mastery of the underappreciated art of inspiring and teaching and taking care” of myself. Sometimes Rob Brezsny is scary.
Five good things from this week:
1) Finding inspiration in the window of a random store on Broadway for a future photo shoot with Christopher. This time I get to be the model and he’ll be the photographer. The new idea made us both laugh very hard.
2) Freshly baked brownies baked and given to me by Jamie. He says that chocolate has healing properties, and after eating most of them today, I now think it’s true.
3) Standing on the Cypress lookout with Hendrik and enjoying the breath-taking view of the Lower Mainland buried in a sea of fog.
4) Coming to a very important realization, with Mandy’s help, that has put my mind more at ease about the resolution of an unhappy situation.
5) A long, but wonderful, conversation with Travis about the state of the world, relationships, and all points in between.
Street lamp
Taken with the Fuji Instax 200, instant camera.
Spin
“The moment you come to trust chaos, you see God clearly. Chaos is divine order, versus human order. Change is divine order, versus human order. When the chaos becomes safety to you, then you know you’re seeing God clearly.”
—Caroline Myss, *Spiritual Madness: The Necessity of Meeting God in Darkness*
Down in the parking garage
Part of my responsibilities in a job I was working in last year, was to monitor the storage areas in the parking garages. At first I found it a creepy place to be, but as I got used to spending time down there I realized it was actually a very photogenic place – in a horror movie set kind of way.
Reaching
It’s been awhile since I’ve created a diptych from some of my photos. I should look through my shots from Seattle to see if there is anything I can combine. Yesterday evening I loaded my first roll of film into a borrowed Olympus Pen EE half-frame to try shooting diptychs in camera. I’ll see how it goes…