FeeFiFoto Blog

Wordless Wednesday: I'm Back!

And more important: my POS computer's back from its week at the spa repair center.

Meanwhile, here are a couple photos from our trip.

Strangers On A Train: Obnoxious Travelers

Dear Man Who Sat With Me And My Boys For Breakfast On The Train:

The motivation for this letter has almost nothing to do with your profuse ear and nose hair, although really -- could ya visit the barber once a month?  Seriously, dude, I've seen my father get haircuts.  I know barbers can get rid of all that volunteer hair in your ears and your nose and on your eyebrows and neck... and by the way, that combover suggestive of a Dairy Queen vanilla soft serve sundae? 

Not working and not fooling anybody.  Please do yourself your dining companions a favor: see a barber.

Well, okay, maybe not that one. Still, a haircut once a month couldn't hurt, and might make you a little more comfortable with yourself and a little less abusive to strangers.

Spring Fame Contest Winner

The winner of the Spring Fame Contest, JC at Castleruins, has achieved her three months of fame! Look for her nephew's self portrait on wooden keepsake box on the home page of FeeFiFoto all through Spring.

Yay JC! You're a winner!

Here's a sample:

 

JC 's photo is being shown on a Wooden Cherry Colored Box with Tile Inset. The image is printed permanently on a ceramic tile, which is inset into the box's lid. Great as a wedding gift or Mother's Day present.

Unusual Ways Of Looking At The Usual

When your business involves photographs you regularly witness astonishingly creative approaches to the same old square or rectangular format.

When I had portraits taken of my kids I'd baffle the photographers by insisting on keeping the unusual photos like this one:

The woman who took this shot had her finger on delete, but I stopped her; this photo shows the essence of my son when he was six months old, with the fingers in the mouth and the little smile behind them.  I once insisted on a portrait of my daughter taken from the back.

Shlepping Kids

Originally published October 21, 2007

Jane at BabySquared writes about intentionally dehydrating herself before a long drive with her twin pre-toddlers so she wouldn't have to stop for a bathroom break on the way:

"This was the first time I've attempted a road trip of any length alone with the girls... I was careful not to drink too much water before I left, and though I would have liked a cup of coffee for the road, it was just too risky. I didn't bring a stroller, which meant that there was pretty much no way I could have stopped to go to the bathroom... I tried to imagine what I would do if things got really, really desperate. I decided that I could:

1.) Pull up close to a gas station with a convenience store, look inside to see if there was a sane-looking woman working there and, if there was, run in and beg her to go out and keep an eye on the girls while I peed. (No offense, guys, but it just wouldn't be cool to ask some random man to watch my children. Probably not so cool to ask a random woman either, but if I had no other choice....)

Vacation?

For the next week and a half or so, I'm going to be on a trip with Robespierre and my nephew, Sweet Talker.  I won't be posting regularly, if at all, for some or all of the following reasons:

1. We'll be on a train much of the time, without reliable access to wireless internet.
2. My laptop will be in for repairs.
3. The dog ate my homework.

To make up for my absence, I've scheduled some older posts (from the days when I had no readers to speak of) to rerun.  Enjoy, comment, discuss amongst yourselves, and I'll see you soon.

Race From Witch Mountain: Movie Review

Robey and I went to see Race To Witch Mountain last night, before shopping for clothes for him -- not me, him.  He's growing so quickly I'm tempted to dress him in garbage bags for the next couple of years.

Anyway, the movie.  The main character is a cab driver played by Dwayne "Don't Call Me 'Rock' Any More" Johnson, who picks up two cute blond teenagers who happen to be illegal aliens without passports, from some planet many multiple light years away from Earth.  You can tell they're aliens because, even though they're cute and blond, they use stilted language similar to that used by HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey.  The alien kids spend half the movie looking very worried and the other half speaking as if they were reciting from a hastily-translated owner's manual for a Japanese-made appliance.  Meanwhile, The Actor Formerly Known As "Rock" drives them through the desert for the first 45 minutes of the movie without ever demanding to know why they talk so funny.

Photo Hunters: Four

Tame peahen mommy and, count 'em, one two three four chicks.

Tah Dah!

See more Photo Hunters here.

PhotoHunt

**See my additional note in the comments

Online Shopping -- Isn't It Great? Discuss.

So, I was, like, browsing the Internet?  Because that's what I do, like, most of the day?  And I saw this, like, umm, sweater?  That looked really cool?  And I'm all This Stuff Is, Like, Really Cool?  So I like clicked over to the site?  On Etsy?  And this lady had all these really awesome, like, tops and sweaters and leggings and stuff and whatever?  And some of them were made of, like cotton and bamboo and whatever?

Oy.  I'm giving myself a headache.

Thursday Thirteen: In Honor Of Friday The 13th

What are you afraid of?

1. Number 13- Triskadekaphobia. Wouldn't this be fear of Triscuits?
2. Asymmetrical things- Asymmetriphobia.
3. Puppets- Pupaphobia.  Sounds like fear of puppies.
4. Church- Ecclesiophobia.
5. Dining or dinner conversations- Deipnophobia.
6. Teenagers- Ephebiphobia.  I think I have this.
7. Color purple- Porphyrophobia.
8. Phobias- Phobophobia.  Duh.
9. Friday the 13th- Paraskavedekatriaphobia.
10. Tickled by feathers or feathers- Pteronophobia.
11. Infinity- Apeirophobia.
12. Long words- Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia or Sesquipedalophobia.  The fear that dare not speak its name.
13. Mother-in-law- Pentheraphobia.

Wordless Wednesday: Darning Egg

This is a Darning Egg:

The Darning Egg is used to repair holes in socks:

And The Winner Is...

Do you see yourself in these words? If so, you're the winner of the FeeFiFoto Spring 2009 Fame Contest:

"That is a hard choice, both which product (all very nice!) and then which photo... but off the top of my head... my nephew's first self portrait on the laser etched bowl... or some other storage box thingy. Decisions, decisions... :-D"

Announcing the winner of the FeeFiFoto Spring 2009 Fame Contest:

JC at Castleruins, come on down! Yay JC! You did it! We knew that you could.

As winner of the FeeFiFoto Fame Contest you'll get to admire your photo incorporated into a graphic and prominently displayed on the home page of FeeFiFoto for the next three months.  Plus, you've won a $10 gift certificate from FeeFiFoto.  Congratulations!

JC, send me a photo file in jpeg format and I'll let you know when your graphic is up on FeeFiFoto's home page.

Photo Hunters: Space

Look what's crammed into the ceiling space of this ferry boat.  Do you think you have to break the slats to gain access to the life jackets?

See more Photo Hunters here.

PhotoHunt

Does Not Compute

Peter Tork, the 67-year-old quiet Monkee, has cancer, and I say that is just incomprehensible because how in blazes could Peter Tork actually be 67?

Swinging

Sasha and Malia Obama just got a cool redwood and cedar swing set play system in the back yard of the White House.  It looks way more funner than the creaky metal one we had when we were kids, the one that nearly pulled off its foundation if you swung too hard.  One piece of advice for them: hose it down occasionally to get rid of cobwebs, spider webs and insect interlopers.

Hope they have an easier time getting rid of it when they're finished with it than I did getting rid of ours.

Thursday Thirteen: Things I Got From My Grandmothers

• Darning egg.  Show a darning egg to almost anyone younger than 40 and not only will they be unable to identify it, but when you explain its use they won't believe you.

• Farberware soup pot.  I already had a few of these but this one is just the right size for making a lot of soup without having it turn into a vat; it's technically referred to as the "Not Vat" size.

• Washboard (but not washboard abs, sadly).  Honestly, I don't know what my grandmother was doing with a washboard because I thought those went out of use after the pioneer migration through the Oregon Trail, but Grandma did live through the Great Depression, so I guess she must not have had an electric washer.

Wordless Wednesday: In Honor Of The Birthday Of Dr. Seuss

These are three views of our library, which started out as Robespierre's nursery, and then Cleo's.  The paintings were done just before Robey was born, by the guy who taught me to watercolor.  When we had the shelves put in I couldn't stand to sacrifice the paintings, so we worked around them.  The blue fish in the center of the last photo had to be moved to make way for the shelf, so I painted the one you see here.

Dr. Seuss's writing has been important to our family for decades; sometimes I still read his books to my kids.

Cupcake, Anyone? My Daughter's New Blog Design

Cleopatra-Queen-Of-The-Nile has just celebrated her one year mark as a blogger.  When she first started blogging I expected her to lose interest in no more than a month, but I shouldn't be surprised that she's kept it up for a year since she loves to write and she's darn good at it.  In addition to learning the ins and outs of blogging she's built her own fan base, with regular visitors and commenters.

Her blog's original name was The Big Hannah Montana Fan, which I thought might be pretty limiting, but I figured she'd lose interest in blogging before losing interest in Hannah Montana so no harm would be done.  A few months ago, still posting reliably every two or three days, she asked if she could hire Ana, from Chica and Pumuckl, to design her a new look.  The price was right, the time was ripe, so she got in touch with Ana and they got to work.

Just A Splash Of Teriyaki, Please: My Kids Are As Klutzy As I Am

Scene 1: Robespierre, he of the Hollow Leg, enters the kitchen in search of many carbohydrates.  Snatching open the pantry door, he spies...

a brand new bottle of Teriyaki sauce hurtling inexorably to its doom at the hands of Evil Gravity, abetted by Tile Floor, Gravity's henchman.

Scene 2 (post apocalypse): Robespierre, he of the Short Attention Span, picks up most of the large pieces of glass and uses the Swiffer to sop up spread around the entire contents of the now defunct bottle of Teriyaki sauce.

Scene 3:  Robespierre's mother, she of the Eagle Eyes Assisted By Bifocals, enters the kitchen and instructs that Robespierre clean the floor again, this time with a damp towel.