Writer, dog mom, living with low-grade serous ovarian cancer
Anyone know why this item would be on clearance at Dogs.com?
These bowls are made of 100% Melamine, a strong durable plastic material that stands up to every day wear and tear. Unlike other pet bowls, melamine reduces scratches and nicks that trap harmful bacteria. They’re dishwasher safe, won’t fade and feature non-skid rubber feet and finger cut-outs on both sides.
My favorite picture of the day.
I’m especially proud that the horizon is straight. I seem to have a problem holding my camera level and it’s not so good when there’s a slanted ocean in the background.
This is the remains of the first salmon the tribe caught this season, after it was tasted by all the participants at the first salmon ceremony. They send the remains back to the sea.
It was impossible to get a good shot during the celebration, because it was indoors. I don’t like using a flash anyway, but even with the flash, most of the shots were too dark. So I was delighted to be invited to accompany the salmon remains to this portion of the ceremony.
Three or four bald eagles circled in the trees while we watched the salmon go. I never have a long enough lens to document these sightings, but I sure love spotting those white heads and tails.
Why won’t anyone teach me what I want to learn?
I enrolled in a PhotoShop class at the community college, level 2, because I didn’t want to have to sit through a bunch of questions about whether to save as a JPG or a TIF or how large to make a file…
Wound up having to listen to those questions anyway.
What I’d like to learn is how to sharpen eyes, lighten faces and otherwise enhance my pictures. Preferably with a discussion of why and when to do such things.
Instead we spent the first hour drawing and manipulating circles and squares, which was a little bit useful, because I learned a few things I didn’t know about navigating the program. Then we learned how to make a neat border around pictures, and how to make one person in color and everyone else blurred and in black and white, and how to put an image inside block text letters. In other words, tricks.
So glad it was a three-hour course.
Here’s what I did today, using nothing I learned at the class. 
I “burned” the background, which was overexposed. I rather like the unnatural halo effect, and concede that this also is a trick.
She’d never do this if I were home.
Note pizza box in background, the bottom of which she chewed through rather than turn the thing over.
Rob was mad that she refused to pose properly with the evidence afterward.
I read a book about how to fit more reading in my life, which is where I got my audiobook inspiration, which turned out to be a splendid idea, as I am spending at least 10 hours a week in my car, it seems, and can get through a book a week that way.
So I am reading 5 books concurrently. I keep one in my purse for lunchtime reading, one on my desk at work, one on my bedside table and one next to the couch in our library (also known as the Asian Serenity Room). Plus the one in my car, which tends to be the one I am most involved with.
In my car: Portrait in Sepia, Isabel Allende
Bedside table: Tracks, Louise Erdrich
Purse: Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck
By Couch: Dog Love, Marjorie Garber
At work: Mountains in the Clouds, Bruce Brown
And since I was traveling by plane this week (to see Mom’s new house), none of those seemed right for travel (not even Travels with Charley, for some reason), I started The Color of Water, by James McBride.
Save My Bath hasn’t called. Hard to believe but there are actually worse bathrooms than mine.
I’m starting to suspect that Stew might be a girl. I’m not sure, because he/she hasn’t laid eggs or displayed any male genitalia. But he/she doesn’t have the secondary sex characteristics distinctive to male iguanas.
Stew doesn’t have fatty bumps behind the eyes, or enlarged jowls or large, rounded subtympanic shields (you totally want to know what that is, don’t you?), or protruding femoral pores.
Let’s compare the very masculine Emerald to Stew, shall we?
It’s so obvious, I’m almost embarrassed I ever believed Stew was a boy.
Question is, if Stew is a girl, do I continue to call her Stew (short for Stewardess, perhaps) or change her name to Stella? Or Irene.
It feels good to look at these suggestions for reducing my carbon footprint, and say that I’m already doing some of them. In fact, I just planted a tree last weekend (after getting it free at an Earth Day event). And I just learned that I shouldn’t leave my cell phone charger plugged in all the time.
I also pay for a garbage service that composts our food and yard waste, even though we have yet to fill up the blue food and yard waste bin. I swear, I thought the amount of Rob’s leftovers I threw away every week at the old apartment would fill a trash can.
Guess I gotta figure out a way to unplug TVs and DVD players when not in use. What a pain. And um, low-flow showerheads? I don’t think I have those.
But I totally empty the lint from the dryer, and I use an electric steamer instead of the stovetop for my veggies. When I eat veggies. And I wash most of my laundry in cold water, except sometimes, don’t you really want your towels and sheets to be blasted with hot water? I like paper bags at the grocery store (just haven’t gotten on the reusable bag bandwagon. How am I to know how much I’m going to buy?), because I can recycle those and use them to transfer Rob’s leftovers from styrofoam containers into the food and waste compost bin.
I’m a bit conflicted about the dog poop situation though. Is it better to put plastic bags of shit in the landfill, or bury it to compost 30 feet from a stream that empties into the bay? Jury’s out on whether composting gets rid of fecal coliform. Just how quickly will the waste seep into the soil and make its way all the way over to the stream?
I really had to take a look at how much the earth means to me when deciding which version of Tori Amos’ new CD to pre-order. Traditionally, I’ve gotten the Deluxe editions. Because I am a fan. But I don’t really watch the DVDs that come with them. And struggled to find good uses for the charms from Scarlet’s Walk and the stickers from the Beekeeper (although they now fantastically decorate my iguana’s habitat). How much do I really need bonus postcards and a 36-page booklet?
Then the answer was clear…I should order it on iTunes! Looks like I still get the booklet, but in digital form. Not sure about the postcards, but I get bonus videos and the satisfaction that I have done my part to preserve Mother Earth.
CHICAGO — Told to express emotion for a creative-writing class, high-school senior Allen Lee penned an essay so disturbing to his teacher, school administrators and police that he was charged with disorderly conduct, officials said Wednesday.
Lee, 18, a straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School in Cary, Ill., was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with the misdemeanor for an essay that police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.
Neither police nor the school would release a copy of the essay written Monday. School officials declined to say whether Lee had any previous disciplinary problems, but said he was an excellent student. Authorities said Lee had never been in trouble with the police.
Arrested?? As an adult? Read the full story and note that the kid is Asian.
An aside, I remember that ACLU spokesman from when I lived in Chicago!
Two observations:
Proof of both of these assertions:
Kari Neumeyer 