FeeFiFoto Blog

Looking For Me?

2011-09-17T08:48:55-05:00

Find me HERE.

Drive carefully.

Moving Day

2011-09-16T19:54:51-05:00

I mentioned I was moving. I've been considering this for a long time. One small reason is that WordPress offers more bells and whistles and I like that. But there's a much more important reason.

When I began blogging it was at the suggestion of my marketing coaches, who pointed out to me that blogging would be a good way to get my web site's name noticed without having to spend so much money wrestling with Google Adwords. They designed this lovely blog for me to match the theme of my web site, FeeFiFoto, named the blog, and had everything up and running for me to play with. And play I did.

I blogged like crazy for months, promoting the site, trying to work a mention of FeeFiFoto into every post. Much of my writing pertained to gift giving for Christmas, Valentine's Day, Mother's and Father's Day, birthdays and anniversaries. I flogged the site, promoted the site, held giveaways from the site, wrote endlessly about calendars, Christmas ornaments, mugs and handbags decorated with your favorite photos.

I also wrote about other things, about my kids and my parents, our travels, our home, our varmints, our environmental issues, and our frequently self-inflicted personal injuries resulting from (usually) my carelessness, inattention, or, to put it nicely, lack of nimbleness.

In other words -- I'm no ballerina, nor do I pretend to be one. Nor a gymnast. Nor a tightrope walker. Nor a brain surgeon. Nor a savant who can carve a grain of rice into an exact replica of the Cathedral of Notre Dame.

To be brief -- I suffer from a deficit of dexterity.

And I wrote about it. I wrote about forgetting to renew my passport, getting stuck in the mud, spending a night in a foreign emergency room, being sent flying by gamboling dogs, spacing out for an entire semester thanks to another student's lack of sartorial imagination, and falling in a muddy hole in the yard in the middle of the night.

I made up my own words, like existentiallier, awesomest, decibility, snackage, overwhelmedness, bragworthy, lawyerliness, slapstically, escapage, and last but not least, klutzing.

KLUTZING. It was a go-to theme in my writing and I discovered that writing about klutzing (especially my own) was much more fun and interesting, and had a lot more potential, than writing about personalized photo gifts. So I wrote about klutzing, and the environment, and food, and school, and planning a Bar Mitzvah, and books, and whatever happened to be at the ends of my fingertips.

But the original name and purpose of the FeeFiFoto Blog taunted me. I much preferred writing about my daily stuff and felt less inspired writing about the gift site. As I wrote more personal stories and less about FeeFiFoto, I wanted the name, design and theme of my blog to reflect what the blog was really about. A re-urling didn't make sense, so I created a new blog. Actually, I created a number of new blogs, reserving name after name until I could decide what was just right, what would roll off the tongue as glibly as The Bloggess or Do0ce or I am Bossy. Here were some of my options:

Klutzingfordummies (clever but trite)
Klutzabelle (would have to be spelled regularly)
Klutzable (meh)
Klutzcess (obscure)
Klutzography (sounds like a high school class)
Klutzographer (see above)
Klutzophilia (negative)
Klutzophiliac (ditto)
Klutzing (not bad)
Klutzingattiffanys (clever but esoteric, and who knew if Tiffany might sue me)
Klutzipedia (derivative)
Klutzology (see number 5)

And the winner is...

Number 13 -- Klutz Capacitor!!!

I bought the address, transferred some of my favorite posts from here (but not all -- I'm still working on that), gave myself a crash course in WordPressing, acquired a new banner (with four choices of background color! Wow!), and for a while posted on both blogs. And for a while after that I posted on neither blog, because I felt caught in between the old and the new.

So, it's time to commit. Klutz Capacitor is still in progress, but there's a roof, four walls and working bathrooms. Paint and carpet can come later, but for now the site is livable.

So let's move in. Here's the address: http://klutzcapacitor.com/.

Drop in any time.

Remembering 9/11

2011-09-11T14:28:44-05:00

This morning my daughter, Cupcake, and I caught some coverage of the commemoration of September 11, 2001. We saw flags being raised, names being read, bagpipes being blown, hymns being played, and many tears being shed. She asked lots of questions and I explained how so many people were killed, why so few were rescued from the collapsed buildings, how hijackers took over four planes, how some passengers managed to resist their captors, and how painstakingly the survivors attempted to recover and honor the remains of so many murder victims.

I was unable to describe sufficiently the intensity of grief and despair experienced by those who lost loved ones in September 2001 (my family lost no one), as well as those who saw the nation we loved under brutal attack. Ten years later I still sense it, I still feel it, I carry it with me every day.

I cannot convey to my kids the depth of sadness I feel for the friends and families of those who were lost, as well as our entire country. They have to take me at my word, that September 11, 2001 was one of the worst days of my life and in the history of the United States.

I pray they'll never have any reason to understand it for themselves.

My Dad Is The Awesomest Dad Ever In The History Of Dads

2011-09-04T19:32:32-05:00

You may dispute me. You might maintain that the greatest dad is Warren Buffett, for teaching his kids to live on their own without inheriting his gazillions.

Or maybe it's Barack Obama or George Bush, for enabling their daughters to grow up surrounded by rose gardens and the ghost of Abraham Lincoln.

Perhaps you might argue for Will Smith, who finagles recording and movie deals for his kids despite their apparent lack of talent.

Or possibly you think the best dad is Prince Charles because... oh, forget it. He collects toilet seats.

You'd be wrong on all of the above and anyone else you might suggest. Want to know why my dad is the awesomest?

He just bought an iPhone.

Originally he resisted buying a cell phone, worried that he'd spend all of his driving time on it instead of enjoying classical music in the car on the way to and from his office.

He was right about that part, but the part he hadn't anticipated was that he could get in all his daily checking-in calls to the family while driving, so that he could enjoy music at home without interruption from the phone.

Before retiring, my father was reluctant to use a computer, out of fear that he might become hooked on it and never get off.

He was right about that part. His office gave him a computer and he learned to use it. Then he learned to fix software problems. Then he taught himself to conquer hardware issues. Then he stepped up as tech support for every member of our family, including his older brother. He taught himself all the mysteries of Excel, and now he excels at Excel, managing family finances for those of us who were English majors. He pays bills online. He plays chess online. He researches online for the literature and music courses he teaches. Last week he joined Skype to communicate with four out of six grandchildren who are not in town this semester.

Yesterday, my father bought an iPhone. Today he bought his first app, Viber, which allows him to chat with all the dispersed grandchildren. Before the end of the month he'll be as knowledgeable on iPhone as his grandchildren.

Everybody's picking up iPhones lately. If my kids don't stop nagging for them I'm moving to Sweden in the middle of the night, where they'll never find me. Although iPhones are certainly cool and exciting, there's nothing too remarkable about having one any more.

So why is my dad so special just because he bought one? What makes him extra cool?

He's 79.

What makes you cool?

You Won't Believe This: Last Week We Met A Whole Bunch Of Rock Stars!

2011-08-26T08:02:52-05:00

I considered filling the spaces between the photos with a bunch of rock-related puns, but even I cringed at the possibility.

So instead I'm just posting photos of some really extraordinary rocks we saw at the Smithsonian last week.

Isn't that gneiss?

Sorry. That one just slipped through.

What Do You Think Is The Meaning Of This?

2011-08-25T19:38:47-05:00

Does it make any more sense this way?

I Had Him CORNERED And Then SHE Had To Interfere And Wreck My Big Game Hunt

2011-08-14T17:50:11-05:00

A chipmunk got into the downspout next to the house! I could hear it squeaking and scrabbling around.

Come here, you chipmunk!

Brazen thing! It just dared me to find it.

You ebil, ebil thing, you!

I was prepared to take down all the siding and trim to get at it.

I know you're in there.

I did my best, but then...

I don't care if I have to dismantle the entire house to get you.

Caught in the act!

Rats! Stupid rodent.

If Price, Availability, And Legal Issues Weren't At Issue...

2011-08-08T15:59:42-05:00

What famous or obscure work of art would you want to own?

Mine would be a Picasso portrait from his classical period of the 1920s, a painting I saw at a museum in Paris some elebenty years ago. I recall a woman with a warm, rosy glow, Botticelli curls (am I mixing my artists metaphors here?), and a graceful Grecian (hence the term classical) profile, serenely looking down through half-closed eyes. It looked something like these, except...

Actually, this one comes pretty close:

But, after wasting way too much time researching the painting and where I think I saw it, I'm now wondering if my addled brain might have made up the precise painting it's dwelled on for all these years. So, I'm satisfied to say that I would happily own any of the Picasso portraits from his Classical period, but if anyone ever finds the one I really love, could you let me know? Because otherwise I might go as insane as Miss Havisham, pining for something that never even existed.

Thanks.

Now it's your turn. Bare your soul. It doesn't have to be a painting or drawing. It could be the Hope Diamond, or Princess Diana's wedding gown, or Paul McCartney's lyrics to "Let It Be." Your deepest desire could be the Sistine Ceiling, the Gutenberg Bible, the Declaration of Independence, the Mona Lisa, or Jeff Koons's Balloon Dog. Go wild. Be honest. Only one entry per customer please.

A List Of Things I've Done This Summer, And Summer's Nowhere Near Over

2011-07-30T11:39:47-05:00

Purchased and set up a new laptop, transferring everything from the POS Sony \/aio.
Had my thumb scorched by the hot air blowing from the vent on the new laptop.
Discovered that a Beanie Baby is exactly the right size to place near the vent to deflect hot air, allow me space to manipulate the mouse, and prevent further thumb-scorching.
Planted ten buckets of bamboo.
Watered ten buckets of bamboo.
Provided emergency medical care to one bamboo that didn't manage to root successfully before the heat set in and consequently lost most of its leaves.
Dug up and moved hostas and ferns from where they shouldn't be to where they should be.
Pulled buckets and buckets and buckets of weeds.
Began (but not yet launched) a new blog.
Posted several times on The Cupcake Bakery.
Threw some new pottery.
Opened an Etsy account in case I want to sell some of my pottery.
Replaced a struggling and very large CRT television with a flat screen.
Prayed for rain.
Struggled to slide the struggling CRT TV off its cabinet and onto a pile of towels on the floor so it could be slid into a corner without shattering into a thousand fragments.
Framed some of Cupcake's best 5th grade artwork.
Arranged carpet cleaning, driveway sealing, cable setup and windshield ding repair.
Worked on teaching Miss Puppy to bark when she wants to go outside. Actually, she learned to bark at the word "hungry" really quickly, but I don't ask any more if she's hungry because she lies to me just to get a treat.
Reread Pride and Prejudice.
Talked to friends, heard from friends, got together with friends, vowed to maintain better contact with friends during the school year.
Watched BBC and A&E productions of Pride and Prejudice... umm... let's say more than once (Colin Firth actually spent a year in my city attending junior high school. We didn't know each other).
Cleaned out junk drawers.
Wrote letters upon letters to both kids, (each one for Cupcake in a different font).
Prayed for a break from the heat.
Repaired an injured desk with wood glue and coffee table books.
Edited marketing materials for a local theater company.
Flossed every night.
Began knitting a tallis for Cupcake's upcoming Bat Mitzvah.
Vacuumed every corner of the house.

And you? What have you accomplished while my kids were away at camp?

Rigging A Jury Is Illegal But There's No Law Against Jury Rigging

2011-07-26T09:22:23-05:00

From some site called Answerbag:

The origin of jury rig is nautical and dates to 1788. It is from the nautical term jury mast. This term dates to at least 1616 and refers to a temporary mast erected to hold sail when the normal mast has been lost due to storm or battle. It is commonly thought that this sense of the word is a clipped form of injury mast, but no evidence of this longer term has been found. This form of jury is etymologically unrelated to the jury that sits in judgment at a trial.

I had to replace a strip of veneer that fell (or was pried, perhaps?) off the front of a desk.

I have tools. I have wood glue, and if that won't do the job I have duct tape.

I squished the glue on the veneer and placed the veneer on the desk and held it there and held it there. When I moved my hands to the center, the ends sagged. When I moved my hands to the ends, the center bowed out. When glue bubbled from the edge I swiped it with my finger and wiped it on my leg, the only readily accessible washable surface.

I don't have the attention span to stand in the same place for hours holding a piece of veneer until the glue dries.

I don't have clamps wide enough for a desk. I doubt clamps of that width even exist.

Trying to hold on the veneer with strategically placed bungee cords seemed to have calamity written all over it.

Fortunately, we are a family that reads.

After turning the desk on its back and replacing the veneer, I painstakingly balanced approximately twenty dictionaries and coffee table books on the edge and tiptoed out of the room. By the next morning the veneer was firmly fixed to the front of the desk.

But I added a few nails, just in case.