Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Oddments

' What happened ' Benj asked Tom, man to man over the remains of lunch 'between you and Grandma?'

' What happened? We divorced.'

'And a long time later' I chipped in, 'he met me.'  (Let's get that one straight while we're here.)

' Why?  Was it because she was so...like this?' He made an odd little movement.

'Like what?'

Benj glanced at his mother, who gave him an the OK.  He got up and did an impression of a tight-lipped, huffing woman marching furiously about the room, elbows pumping.

'Your trouble is, lad' said his grandfather 'you see too much.'

~

St Michel

pink rocks     
deep pink flowers 
green fish flickering 
tiny crabs in spiral shells
brown boys splashing
fierce love

a boat comes to the shore.

~

Droplets on flowers, always a favourite.









~

On the new mini notebook, I'm using Google Chrome as a browser, which I'm enjoying.  It lacks the feeds and favourites functions of IE, but there are ways around this.  One is a toolbar thing called extensions, which gives little icons you can click on to tell you immediately when something updates and link you to it.  I don't fully understand it, but have managed to acquire a button for my feedreader (which I only use for two or three rarely updating and/or more private blogs), and one for my gmail, which I keep open anyway.  When the latter gets a new message, and then when I read it, the red envelope icon does a jaunty little spin.  Occasionally I send myself messages just to see it do this.

~

Aargh.  The webcam works. Haven't had one of these before.


 Happily not very well, so much of my face is in shadow.  Makes me look rather brooding, I hope, and my shirt looks an interesting colour.  In fact my shirt is many quite interesting colours, but nothing like this.  And I suppose I am a bit brooding sometimes, but not in a very interesting way.  I don't imagine I'll make it a regular feature, but it's a novelty. 

~

And so to bed. 



14 comments:

Zhoen said...

Re: Self Portraits. I said the same thing.

Lush flower photos.

Kids always do see, but when they don't have the words, they are often denied the expression. I'm glad Benj's mom gave him permission to ask in his own way.

Kelly said...

Lovely pictures and poem. I think you will prefer using Chrome over IE after you make a few adjustments. I use the blogger dashboard and greader for keeping up with the blogs I follow with Chrome and it works great.

marja-leena said...

Delightful sketches and fabulous photos! Glad you are enjoying the new technology.

zephyr said...

what an enjoyable...um..."tossed salad" of a post!

herhimnbryn said...

Out of the mouths of babes...

rb said...

Tee hee re the grandson! My son once said to me, quite unprovoked and off subject "granny Barbara isn't very kind is she?" And yet, to me, it always seemed that she made a real effort to be nice and kind when the children were around. Just goes to show.

I can't really see you in the self-portrait which is a shame.

I too have started using Chrome lately (a month or so ago). Initially I wasn't too sure but I stuck with it and now I really like it.

Roderick Robinson said...

To ask an awkward question and then follow it up with another awkward question - that lad's career is already mapped out. For his next birthday one of you can do him a pokerwork plaque carrying Claude Cockburn's guideline to all journalists: Ce salaud! Pourquoi me ment-il? I fear the first pronoun may be wrong.

Chrome. So you went that route. You may find that when you change to Windows 7, like hay before the scythe, a lot of similar features may arrive. But by then you'll be electro-plated. Sorry, a rotten idea that got rottener.

The dark lady of the sonnets. You could do a Photoshop before and after. As it is you look like an emerging Anne Bancroft with all that that entails. Stick with it, then, though your shirt must inevitably go for nought.

Unknown said...

A rich post. Worth 10,000 words. It is made richer by the simplicity of the poem to St Michael, about St Michael.

The Crow said...

Lucy, would you mind if I used your third photo for a painting? I especially like the way you cropped it, plus the clarity of color, the shapliness of the stamen and the curling petals.

Lovely post, all way 'round.

Lucy said...

Thanks again, and for comments on the last I've not got round to following up.

This was obviously not quite the entirety of the conversation with Benj, which also treated the matter of people sometimes just not being able to get on, and how there's never really just one reason why they can't. He is, probably not unusually, at 10 years old a mixture of babyishness that doesn't want to give it up and an old head on young shoulders. We generally liked his questions and the spirit in which they were asked.

Considering he got quite a laugh and some attention for this one, he didn't flog it. His elder sister is more discreet.

It was the little St Michel up at the Cap d'Erquy. There are some beautiful photos of it elsewhere on the web, but not mine.

Anne Bancroft I wish. I think it's a very basic webcam, mostly turns out small dark pics and attempts to improve them mostly go pixellated. It has a certain fascination all the same.

I'm only using Chrome on the little notebook, but I like it. I'm in a bit of a limbo with feeds and blogroll, need to make some decisions but am disinclined. I'll try to get round as and when.

Crow, very happy that you are painting and even happier to supply any subject matter. No need to ask!

HKatz said...

In my last webcam photo, the room was also largely shadowed except for an alien glare of light off my glasses.

I love those flowers - they're delicious.

Rouchswalwe said...

Ah, technology. Am wrassling with it this week. But the scent of ultimate success is in the air (your flowers are wonderfully captured in such a way that their aroma is somehow released here. How do you do that?). I have at times been awed by how sharp the little ones seem to be when sussing up the adults around them.

YourFireAnt said...

Your photographs are just lovely! I'm in awe.

Thanks.

T.

Anonymous said...

OOOOh my! Pink and lime green perfection! Delightful. Love too the great visuals of the grandson's portrayal of his other grandmother.