2012 - Happy New Year

Happy New Year, 2012. This year I'm making the switch. when I talk about the year I'm not going to say two thousand twelve. I'm going to say twenty-twelve. I probably should have done that with twenty-ten but twenty-twelve really has a nice ring to it.

We stayed home on New Year's Eve. I admit that I was in bed and asleep by the time the new year rolled in but we had done our best for good luck in 2012. We ate black-eyed peas, a southern tradition,  for prosperity and twelve grapes with good wishes attached for the Mexico tradition.

We had a wonderful Christmas with the boys and their families and Ned's sister's entire family including our newest addition, Baby Finn. And one of her sons brought a girl friend. This is the first one he has brought around so we are all wondering if she will be joining us for good.  Ned's Aunt and cousin also joined us. 

I worry so about my oyster stew for Christmas Eve but it turned out just fine although we barely had enough. I felt really good when Jack, Betsy's Dad, said the oyster stew was one of the reasons he came to Texas for Christmas. This year I had a little more attention from Mike and Betsy while I cooked it. I think they realize that they better learn how to do it 'cause I ain't getting any younger.

And speaking of younger.....I had a birthday on the 30th. What a shock this one was. At 75 I finally have to admit I'm a "senior." All the times when I've bought a senior ticket or taken advantage of a senior discount, I've felt a little like a fraud. I really wasn't THAT old. Well, I still don't feel it but this birthday makes it feel legit. I no longer have to feel guilty about saying, "Senior ticket, please."

We are headed in to 2012 with high hopes. Ned is feeling good. We will be taking a break in treatment and be able to head SOB for a few weeks. We are looking forward to being in our home, seeing our friends, and catching up on all the happenings in San Miguel.

Another photo made on my walk along Buffalo Bayou shot with the iPhone Instagram app. Give me some slack while I explore the iPhone. I don't think it ever going to substitute for my DSLR but it is fun. I'm learning about using some of the apps besides Hipstamatic and Instagram. And it will be a camera that is always with me. I think of it as a Camera/Phone instead of a Phone/Camera. Now I have to get it unlocked so I can use the Phone part when we are in San Miguel. Gotta get that done this week before we head South.

Christmas Crazy

I thought that I had gotten past Christmas Crazy but I'm realizing that I can't help myself. I am on the holiday cooking list for:

Oyster Stew for 10 (or more) on Christmas Eve

4 Jalapeno Quiches on Christmas morning
Fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, again for Christmas morning

Chocolate Cheese Cake and Creamed Onions for Christmas Dinner

That is enough....don't you think? It is really a lot of chopping and prepping and cleaning up. Fine! I can do it although the oyster stew always makes me nervous. I've tried to write down the recipe but when you start making it for 10 or more people it is a little nerve wracking. It is a lot of stirring and tasting and hoping that everyone will think it is as good as last year.

However, here is the deal. I don't think it will be Christmas if I don't make at least one recipe of Chocolate chip cookies, a batch of Pecan Sandies, an attempt at old fashioned Hershey's boiled fudge, and I want Cranberry Nut Bread too. I just can't help myself.

Now to get all of that done along with the other Christmas stuff, I'll end up Christmas Crazy but really happy and full of the spirit of Christmas.

Later in the day: This photograph? I can't leave the new iPhone alone. I'm trying out some of the photo apps. This one is the hipstamatic. You have several lenses and different films you can choose. This one is kind of grungy but colorful. This is the cranberry nut bread. I've also made a recipe of fudge but it looks like if I want to have any on Christmas Day, I'll have to make another batch. It keeps mysteriously disappearing.

An Early Christmas Present

I got an early Christmas present . . . An iPhone.  I've been talking about one for most of this year. Not because of the phone. I had a perfectly good cell phone. I wanted it for the camera and the photography apps. I know that is a ridiculous reason to get an iPhone so you don't have to tell me what I already know.

Here is the thing. I've been watching photography friends posting iPhone images on Facebook and looking at their websites where they are making marvelous art using the apps. I've listened to them talk about the iPhone always being with them so it was the camera they used most often. I've tried to avoid buying the phone by buying some of the small point and shoot cameras. Too much trouble to carry the cell phone AND the camera. But now I have it all in one tiny package and if I'm bored while I wait for something, I can always take a photograph into the apps and play.

I've had the iPhone for almost two weeks now and I'm addicted.  Thank you, Santa.

Night Lights #17

I am not through with the Christmas lights. There are still more places, lots of places, on my list. Son #1 has said he wants to take me to see some huge light displays that are choreographed for sequences of several minutes. And I'd still like to get to the neighborhoods in Southeast Houston where Ned and I grew up. What surprises me is that I have only seen one nativity scene and I saw it in the daylight so I've got to get back there at night and see if it is lit so I can get you a photograph.

Night Lights #16

Another contemporary home decorated with restraint. A wreath on the door and the plastic-sack luminary lights. I love the simplicity. It goes with the house. I wonder who the architect was for this house. It pays homage to the front porch but it isn't a copy of  a house from the 1920's. I'd like to meet the owners.

Night Lights #15

Merry Modern Minimal or Christmas Contemporary.....whatever you want to call this house. The lights are actually red, green and white but the camera just sees them as the lightest light source in the frame. I like the way one-half is red and warm and the other half is blue and cold.

Night Lights #14

Frosty, the snowman. Trust me, there is no snow on the ground. I don't know how Frosty can look so cheerful in 60-70 degrees.

Night Lights #13

WOW! This month is going by fast and I still have lots of Night Lights I want to photograph. Sometimes when we go out I see places I want to photograph but something about the light isn't right....like they don't have the lights turned on. Here at the River Oaks Shopping Center....the lights were on.

Today Ned is taking his last Chemo treatment and in spite of all the damage from radiation and chemo he is doing really well. The  issue that remains is eating. You never know what might taste good to him. Sometimes even mentioning a food will sound unappetizing to him. Sometimes he thinks something will be good but it doesn't taste good when he starts to eat it. Two things that are his fallback foods are Ensure and canned soups but not all canned soups.

Last year when he took chemo, it was pork that he couldn't abide. This year it is bread. Some of his favorite vegetables, even green salads, have dropped off his list for now as well. However, I know the secret to his stomach on chemo. If he hasn't eaten very well for a day or so, I'll prepare some kind of fried meat, mashed potatoes,cream gravy, and green beans....the fried diet....and he will eat. Maybe even two helpings. He surprised me by eating cold boiled shrimp for lunch one day and pecan pancakes with maple syrup for breakfast another day.

We have good reports from a couple of his doctors. The last MRI showed no signs of tumor. As soon as we can get away after Christmas, we will be back in San Miguel ready to roll.

Night Lights #12

This house was shot in the Old Sixth Ward. The house just glowed with warmth and Christmas cheer.

Night Lights #11

As we drove down a street looking for Christmas lights in Eastwood, I caught just a glimpse of this house on a side street, glowing from the blue icicle lights hanging from the eaves. So strange looking like a blue glow from a space ship in a 1960 science-fiction movie. We circled around the block so I could  photograph it.

Night Lights #10

Last night we went to Eastwood, the neighborhood where we own a lot....just in case we want to build another house someday. I thought that we would see more Christmas lights up than we did. Maybe there will be more after this weekend.  Between the weird colors and the high contrast, these images are hard to process. And just when I think I have them okay, I bring them into Blogger and they change again.

Night Lights #9

Wells Fargo Plaza, Houston, Texas

Night Lights #8

Rockefeller Center doesn't have anything on Houston. Houston has it's own giant tree in front of City Hall.

And while Rockefeller Center has a skating rink in front of their tree, we have a reflection pond. Houston's Christmas ice skating rink is located somewhere else. It is a marvel to me that they can keep ice on that rink since during this time of the year, Houston can have 40 degree weather one day and the next it could be  80 degrees.

Night Lights #7

Another decorated house in the Heights.

Night Lights #6

 We are doing a little decorating for the Holidays and I'm having so much fun because I have to figure out something different to use. We got rid of all our Christmas decorations when we moved to San Miguel full time. There were ornaments that the kids had made, ornaments that had been given to us from relatives, so much stuff that it took at least a seven foot tree to get them all on. So when we were downsizing, we told our sons, come get any of the decorations you want and they did.

There were a few exceptions. I had about five or six manger scenes that I had collected. None of them were antiques or anything like that but I loved them. I kept all of them. Then I had some blown glass balls that #2 had given me and they are so beautiful and I love them so much I couldn't get rid of them. I also had a wooden tree that I attached them to rather than letting them get lost on the tree.  All of that was packed and stored.

We got them out of storage and we bought a little four foot tree. That is when the fun started. All of the accessories I used to decorate before were gone so we made a couple of trips to the crafts store and would you believe that they were already putting the Christmas floral stuff and ribbons on sale at 60% off. Where before I kept doing the same things over and over, now I could start all over and do something new. Much smaller scale of decorating but I had a great time.

Night Lights #5

This is newly refurbished Kirby Drive just off the corner of Richmond.  The city widened the street, put in more turn lanes. I'm not sure who added all the trees along the street, the city or a business district but it looks really nice. Especially with the lights on the trees.

I've been thinking about the blog entry, Night Lights #4 of the store window and you know what I miss? I miss the store windows that were full of toys and Christmas villages and trains that ran through the scene. I certainly remember them when I was a kid and, of course, no Christmas was complete until we had taken the sons to see Foley's Christmas windows and had driven through a neighborhood that had gone all out with their Christmas lights. All this nostalgia makes me want to see The Christmas Story movie again because that was really Christmas.

What will my grandsons remember about Christmas when they are old geezers? It won't be going downtown to see the most amazingly decorated Christmas windows. What a shame.

Night Lights #4

A little change of pace on the Night Light series but it is still about Christmas lights and decorations.

Last night I got Ned to go along with me as my Security Officer. When we were getting ready to leave Carly did her bouncy run through the house that says, "I wanta go, I wanta go. Take me." So we took her along too. I had seen some Christmas lights at a couple of strip shopping centers or Business Districts. I thought I'd feel better with someone watching my backside as I stood looking and adjusting my camera and tripod. Besides when I get in the flow, I really lose track of what is going on around me. We actually only hit a couple of locations but I came away with about 36 digital files, seven of which I processed and three of them are maybe keepers. Three out of 36....that is pretty good for me, especially if even one does turn out to be a keeper.

I kept expecting the shopping centers Security Officers to come up and tell me I couldn't photograph there so I stayed on the public sidewalk. However I had spotted this window and like the way it looked so I had been planning how I wanted to shoot it. Just before we left I walked from the sidewalk to right in front of the window. Plopped the tripod down, shot three exposures and picked up the tripod and walked to the car.

I had thought about how I would handle it if someone did tell us we could not photograph at the shopping centers. No one ever hassled us. I was almost disappointed.

Night Lights #3

While we are here in Houston I am trying to see as many movies as I can. Particularly those that might be in the running for some category of the Academy Awards. I saw Secretariat which was panned by a lot of the critics as being a "Feel Good" movie. What is the matter with being a "Feel Good" movie if it is also a good story, well acted, good photography, wonderful time-piece sets and wardrobe? I don't get it. Does a movie have to be on the darkside to be an Academy Award movie?

Another movie I saw was The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, from the last book in Stieg Larsson's trilogy. I saw the first movie, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo but missed the second one. And, of course, I've read all three books. These movies were made in Sweden and so you have English subtitles. I thought the two movies that I saw were good and kept to the storyline of the books. They felt gritty and raw like the books. I liked them, so of course, the critics panned them. Now Hollywood is going to re-make them. Can Hollywood make them better? Time will tell.

Last night good friends invited us for dinner. They had made a new soup recipe and had bought some tamales from a vendor that they wanted to check out. Simple dinner but we could not have enjoyed it more if it were five-courses. Just goes to remind me that it is the company not the necessarily the food that makes a good evening.

Another Night Lights image at the top. This one is also from the Heights. I'm having a hard time with these images. They look okay in Photoshop or if I view them from one of the Windows image programs but when I add them to Blogspot or Facebook they become darker. They were made in the dark and I want them dark not daylight but I don't want them as dark as Blogspot and Facebook are making them. I'm having to go back and adjust my files. Still they aren't quite right but I hope you enjoy my Night Lights series.

Night Lights #2

I'm changing the title of this series from "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas" to "Night Lights." Photographing houses decorated for Christmas certainly isn't a new idea but it is a convenient idea for me just now. So you will be seeing Christmas lights in Houston for the next month.

Tonight I drove over to an area of Houston called The Heights. It is an old neighborhood that has for the most part been taken care of over the years. There was one street where a number of houses had lights strung way up into gigantic oak trees with tails of lights hanging down. The neighbors must have hired equipment to hang the lights or maybe one of the neighbors owns the company. At any rate it was very striking to see the lights soaring into the sky and looping down again.

 I went to a meeting of some photography friends who gather once a month to talk about what they are working on, photography books, essays, exhibits or videos they have seen. They always inspire me.

It Is Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas #1

Mike and Betsy's house.