Category: she said

a new language

well, holy cow, you guys are all fired up about french and subterfuge and runny noses and all that. It is about time I brought this back to the level. I have a new entry into the language…brains.

Abby, you have something on your chest, lemme see. (reaching)
NO! It’s nothing. nevermind (pause) Let me go look at it in the mirror.
Ok.

It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it. It’s just brains.
It’s What?! (slight concern registering on my brow)
Just brains see. (as she pulled her skin tightly revealing the detailed topography of her venous system)
Just all the blue brains. It’s okay. They’re fine.

I didn’t catch on right away but when I finally caught the transition I couldn’t maintain a poker face.
She must have asked 4 times what Mommy and Daddy were laughing at.

She should be adequately prepared for derisive children in kindergarten.

Pets

At Justin’s 6th grade graduation the other day:

Gramma Nana!!! But I thought you were gonna bring Holly? (her dog)

Well no, there are too many people and she’d bark and cause a fuss and get in the way you know.

[thinking…]
Well WE brought Emma!?

M-O-O-N That spells moon.

Weeks ago Abby talked about jumping so high she would jump to the moon.
I told her that it takes a lot of people to get to the moon and jump on it and I just spouted off a few including engineers, ground control etc.

Tonight she revisited the subject.

I jump so high up to the sky!
Yeah, that is pretty high.

It takes a lot of people to jump up to the moon though.
That’s right honey, it does.
Like Mary…and…
Like Mary?
Uh huh. (as if that is obvious)
Yeah it takes a lot of people like ground control, and maybe even some lawyers (first job I could think of…probably because of the Mary connection.) in case there are problems and…

Yeah you need somebody to catch you too! Like Maryyy and Andyyy.

Diffuse Dorothy

Inspired by James’ work with Arthur and his posies I resolved to take an ostensibly average photo and attempt to emphasize the expression and the attitude I liked in it for an ostensive expression of art and skill. (How often do you get to use those two words back to back? Did I even use them in the correct order? Anyway…)

What I came up with was this irradiated shot of Abigail in her Dorothy dress from last December.

Abigail as Dorothy 12_2005

If you are interested, I got this affect using Photoshop in the following way.

  • I copied the orig image onto it’s own layer
  • Desaturated the top layer
  • Masked the areas where I wanted the color to come through (Dress, lips, and eyes. I know, I am such a feminist)
  • Some blurring (to take away some grain and bad blurring of the orig photo)
  • Then, the coup-de-grace was Diffuse Glow with settings of 0 on grain, 10 on Glow, and 8 on Clear. That is an expert way of saying that I hacked and monkeyed around with the settings until I got the look that I wanted. Very bright highlights with little loss of detail.
  • Then I applied that to both layers and the mask itself with knocked down the colors rather nicely.

All that ‘desaturation-diffuse-glowing-photoshop-mumbojumbo’ and I still think it doesn’t hold a candle to the natural ability of James and his Picasa. He seems to have a feel for what looks good and I am getting lost in some pretty unintelligible numbers.

I would say we should have a photo Tech-night sometime where we spend a lot of time manipulating photos and goofing with the art that computers allow but that STILL won’t get the point across, just getting the subject to express itself through minimal application of the appropriate manipulation that covers the feeling of the shot. Hmph.

One more thing, if you want to take a look at an exceptional photography site check out www.photo.net. Excellent artists with ‘Photoshopped’ and natural photographs from a wide gamut of photographers. Be aware that there are occasional nude/semi-nude photographs on this site.

Drinking games

So some of you may know that when Abby was very small I held her close once and told her she was “the best toy ever”. I didn’t mean that in a condescending way, really.

  • The best kind of toy is one that you can play with for years and years and rarely get tired of the fun.
  • The best kind of toy is one that leaps up and surprises you with some new abilities you never knew it had and some that you tried painstakingly to program.
  • The best kind of toy is one that, well, is like a small child. They copy you when you are/aren’t looking and they are just the coolest toy.

Who doesn’t love to make their children do and say things that amuse them. Okay, so that’s simple, but you all know that there were caveman fathers making funny faces at babies and teaching their three year old cave-girls how to roar like a cave-bear. So I just enjoy the tradition, passed down through generations upon generations, of coaxing Abby into playing my games and mimicking my movies and…singing my songs. Only cavemen didn’t usually get to listen to it over and over again or pass it around the campfire, or to OTHER campfires, they had one chance. That is where blogs come in, the 21’st century campfire for our relatives in Pennsylvania and for that matter, our relatives in very close proximity.

I hope this thing doesn’t bring down our server. It is a fairly large download at 840KB but if you know ‘The Zimmerman Song’ it is worth every byte. It should play in either Quicktime or iTunes. It may play in other players but I am definitely not a sound caveman. If you have troubles, let me know. I may be able to figure it out but, eh um…no guarantees.

Without further ado…sheesh, I sure can have a lot of “ado” sometimes.
The Zimmerman Song

Important parts

Snuggling in bed a few mornings ago Abby was feeling the baby kick.

What was that?

She was kicking you honey, at least I think she was kicking. [probing her own belly] I think this is her head over here, or maybe her little butt. I can’t tell for sure.
[pause…still probing. Abby still feeling the action ]
I can’t tell what part is what honey.

Abby continued to feel the bursting energy within for a while and then very soberly addressed The Mommy.

Mommy. When she comes out we need to make sure we get all her parts out too.

What is a baby?

Mom? Remember I said that I want a pet?

Yes honey. You do have pets, you have fish! And pretty soon you will have a baby sister, and that is almost the same thing.

I interjected a few seconds later

You know what she really is? A toy!
It’s a what?
I said, ‘she is really like a really cool toy!’

[brief pause ]

It’s not a toy…IT’S A PET!