Red Mosquito’s Neighborhood

You make do with what you have. And with what you have, you fucking make it happen, to the best of your ability. And when you plow ahead with that shit, you lay out some new standards.

Things are about to get a fuck of a lot clearer around here.

Gear

I would never identify myself as a *photographer.* I'm a guy who owns a camera. But, if you go out tonight and buy yourself a notebook, I can't say that necessarily makes you a *writer*, either.

In the five years I have maintained the coop, in various iterations, I have used the same camera, a point-and-shoot Kodak. Through a little luck, I have, with it, captured the following, which are photos either scenic in their beauty or otherwise significant in their timing, having very much to do with the subjects or the memory elicited upon review.

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I took this thing to Maui, on our honeymoon.

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Took it to the Redwoods

Redwood

 
It captured my favorite Lake Michigan sky shot from the Leelanau Peninsula.

Lakemichsky

And 400 miles down state, it helped me chronicle Detroit's abandoned train station.

Lobby1.pg

Lobby2

Lobby3

As well as the beauty of spontaneity on a Sunday morning in the city.

Pew

As well as its residents, even if they are filling up a fan full of bread.

Bread

It reminds me of the best meal ever, lunch at Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor.

Zing

Or the city's lights

Downtown

Or an hour and a half north, at a friend's relative's cabin on Lake Huron

Huron morning

Or maybe Hamilton Avenue on Detroit's West Side

Door

Humbly, I really believe this doesn't scratch even the most malleable surfaces. There are so many more. And they were all taken with this little fucker:

Ps1

Dirty, ink-stained strap.

Strap

Five years with a beat-up point and shoot. I retire it with my own personal honors.

Ps2

Before Flickr, you had CVS, and they would develop film for you. And when they
became progressive, they provided their customers with photo CDs.

As we aim for greater room and organization in our house, I find myself more in the basement. And when I'm in that cold, dank tomb, I come across shit like this:

Ferndale car

Mannion

St. laurent bros

Hometown bar

Jeffbruch

A lady was picking through the frozen turkeys at the grocery store but she couldn't find one big enough for her family.

She asked a stock boy,  "Excuse me, young man. Do these turkeys get any bigger?"

The stock boy pondered his options before replying, "No ma'am, they're dead."

Some film prints taken with my Holga 120N in Tarpon Springs, FL (Sponge Docks). Greek fishing community...lots of boats, gift shops and great Greek foods.

βάρκα

γλάρος

διπλή έκθεση

μια άλλη βάρκα

2009 was quite a year. For me at least, it was a year of adjustment. In January, I had to go back to work and although I was lucky enough to go back 2 days in the office and three at home, it was quite an adjustment for me to split my attention the way working mom's must. Adjusting to motherhood was a surprise. I naively thought that once I had Drew everything would magically fall into place. I wanted him. I tried for him, how could I NOT be ready to be his mother. Well as ready as I was to be Drew's mom, I was not prepared to be his primary care giver. It never occurred to me that though Andrew is very much a part of his life, let's face it, he works in the city, and is away from the house more than he is here. Drew's care falls on me. I also was not prepared to always have a piece of my mind at home. What is he doing? It's 11, is he sleeping? Is he having lunch? Did he eat well? Questions for every second I am away fill my mind. And for me, it was rough to adjust to that guilt. The guilt of not being the one to take care of him 24/7 and the guilt for enjoying my time in the car alone or at work. 

Dear 2009:

I'd say I was going to get back into shape and lose some weight.

I know, everyone says that, but I really mean it. I purposely am not calling this a new year's resolution for two reasons. One, it's going to last more than a week, or even a month. I am going to do it. I'm not going to try, I'm going to do it. I lost weight before, and I'm going to do it again. I'm going to start with a goal weight that's anywhere between 5 and 9 lbs below where I am now (depending on the day) and go from there.

The second reason it's not a new year's resolution is that this really has less to do with it being a new year than it does with the holidays being over. I decided a month or so that I'm ready to diet again, but didn't want to set myself up to fail by trying to do it during Christmas. So I decided I wasn't going to worry about it until after the first of the year.

Right now I'm not planning to go back on South Beach. I had great success on it before, but I'm not willing right now to go back to no- and low-carb unless I have to. ("Have to" being defined as if I fail in my original plan.) My ultimate goal is to just get us all on to good eating habits that can be maintained long-term. I'm thinking of buying the Mayo Clinic Diet Book (yes, the famous, up-until-now-mythical Mayo Clinic Diet does actually exist). It just came out and I can get it at a discount.

I also have a new workout DVD that I did (and I use that term loosely) for the first time yesterday. It's very cardio-oriented and it totally kicked my butt. I want to get back to a level of great cardiac fitness. I don't think I've had that since college....but I sure felt great when I had it. And it can only be good for my metabolism and this body that unfortunately is beginning to age. :(

So.....wish me luck! I'll try to update my progress so feel free to ignore those posts if you want. :)

Here's my Purple Dress of Flattery.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

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So I've had this roaster for probably almost two years and I've never really used it, except to keep stuff warm at a party. Just after Thanksgiving, turkey was on sale (imagine that!) and we decided to get one. Well, today I decided I would thaw it and roast it. My first problem was getting the neck out. I couldn't find the dumb thing, and ended up taking out something that in retrospect was probably part of the spine. I thought to myself, gee, how can it be so hard to remove the neck? Digging a little deeper, I put my hand on something and pulled. Voila, the neck. It came out as easily as I would have originally expected. :)

I even stuffed it. I used Brownberry seasoned stuffing, chicken broth, and margarine. Then I also stirred in some pork sausage and celery that I'd cooked. Then I threw in some Craisins (a suggestion from the back of the bag but fully endorsed by Joey - he loves Craisins and in fact won't eat salad without them). They were a yummy addition.

All in all, the turkey turned out ok, except while it was cooking it was heating up really fast. I had violent flashbacks to the prime rib of the other night and ended up turning it off an hour early. It did get done, and stayed moderately hot since I didn't open the roaster. I'd followed the directions on the back of the wrapper - heck, I've never roasted a turkey before, what do I know - which said I should cook it for 4-4 1/2 hours. During supper I hypothesized that maybe the roaster cooks faster than an oven does since it's a smaller space (or something). I just looked at the owner's manual for the roaster.....and sure enough. 2-3 hours for a 14-16 lb roast, which was about how long it took. Dumb me.

Oh well, this is why I practice & learn around people who are forgiving.

Dinner was rounded out with the stuffing, which went over famously, and mashed sweet potatoes, which I thought were the bomb but no one else was terribly impressed with. All in all, it was a good meal.