So I’ve been home for a week now. Are you all salivating over the prospect of lots of new and interesting adventures that I’ve had in the last seven days?
 |
| The kitten I named Hal shows off his sense of balance while checking me out. |
Little tip: don’t bother. With Scott and his mom basically hanging around the house all last Thursday and Friday, I made myself scarce at home. Slept a great deal, watched some netflix, went out to play darts, etc. There was a bit of excitement at the house when one of the kittens that had first appeared on my deck last summer suddenly made a return – with 5 of her own kittens in tow. I fed them on Thursday afternoon and gave them a bowl of water, which enticed them to become official squatters – when I got up to feed the cats on Friday morning, all six of them were piled in a heap on the deck. Mama cat heard me inside and immediately approached the door, looking at me and obviously begging for food, which I provided. I also gave names to all of the kittens and started trying to figure out how I could catch them all in order to get them fixed. I love having yard cats, but I don’t really want to have 50 of the things out there.
By Saturday morning, however, they were already making themselves scarce. I saw my favorite kitten, which I had named Brooks, a few times during the day; but he was obviously not comfortable hanging out on the deck by himself, and I was unable to locate any of the other critters. I left some food and water out, but by Sunday evening it was apparent that the whole family had picked up stakes. There’s still some water out there if they need it, as it’s been abysmally hot and dry this summer.
Also on Saturday, I took Scott and his mother to the airport, where she caught a plane back to Minnesota. When Scott and I returned to the house, I decided to get some yard work done. I had high hopes of cutting down a stand of privet and chipping it all into nothingness, but after trimming the holly and hydrangea around the deck and then sweeping and washing said deck, I was completely drenched in sweat, was hotter than I’ve ever been in my life, and cut the work short in order to go back into the house, change out of my clothes, and sit in a tub of cold water. On Sunday, I didn’t even attempt to do any more lawn work.
Monday was back to real work, and it’s been going surprisingly well so far. I had a major bottleneck (firewall issues) with a project before I left. In my absence, one of my co-workers had managed to get that solved; so for the last three days, I’ve been writing queries like a fiend and finally making progress on a huge request that’s been on my plate for nearly a year.
I also got hit with a request from Furman’s new director of football operations, who apparently has been unable to find a lot of pictures of this year’s seniors for the annual promotional poster. He asked me to provide him with shots of about eight different players. So far, I’ve managed to give him seven. Not sure that I’ll be able to get him the last guy, who went down with a season-ending injury in the second game of the season last year – when I was in Grand Rapids. I don’t believe I ever saw the kid play.
While going through the shots for the school, I got an idea to start a new photography project, which I’m calling “Self-Portrait, 365.” As the name implies, the idea is to try to take photographically-interesting (one hopes) pictures of myself every day for a year. If you are so inclined, you can follow my progress in this endeavor at http://theuffp.smugmug.com/Photography/Self-Portraits/18037001_db3FJB, which will have large versions of the shots that I’ll also be posting on Facebook.
This is not so much a completely narcissistic idea as one which I hope will improve my photography skills – particularly my skills in portraiture, which are pretty bad. I’d like someday to be able to take decent street portraits, but I’m not going to even attempt that until I’m more confident; and I figure I’ll make a patient model for myself as I learn.
Seems like a good time to wrap this up, check my email one more time, and hit the sack.
TWD